Daemons' Children - Revised
by Neale
Summary: This is the continuation of Chuck Versus the Daemon – Revised and Daemons and Dragons – Revised. For anyone starting here it as a rather extremely AU steampunk Chuck story set in the 1870s. Truth and Glare
1. Daemons' Children - Revised

**This is the continuation of Chuck Versus the Daemon – Revised and Daemons and Dragons – Revised. For anyone starting here it as a rather extremely AU steampunk Chuck story set in the 1870s.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

The others had come out from Los Angeles for their homecoming, and Jane raced down the gangway the moment they had it in place to get to her Elana. Her first agenda was to hug her, but then she stepped back to look down at the size of her belly. They'd been told she was pregnant, but after the voyage, that pregnancy was so very obvious on her lithe frame, even more so over the past month, she was so big!

Chuck could tell that the glare Jane sent his way as she said "You did this to her!" was more than a little serious, but Sarah took the wind out of her sails when she laughed and said.

"Of course he did Tante Jeanne! What sort of girl do you think I am that you think I'd be pregnant to anyone _but_ by my husband?"

Jane's aggravation melted as she smiled and embraced her again, then embraced Chuck too before helping Sarah up the gangway.

Once Sarah was safely on the dock, John shooed Chuck after her as Sarah needed her husband. He didn't want to say anything to them, but he was worried. Sarah was getting too big, too fast, there was something out of the ordinary about this pregnancy, and he was afraid that it may have something to do with what both of them had inside of them.

John smiled as he looked up at them though, as when he caught up with Sarah Chuck greeted her with a kiss, and she leaned into him contentedly as he put his arm around her to help her up to the big house. He could tell the moment that they caught sight of Goliath and his ladies as they both stopped, with Sarah pointing at them excitedly as they gallivanted about in their paddock. He still didn't understand what Chuck was planning with horses that big, but knowing Chuck, it would be something worth waiting for.

Sarah and Chuck's time up to the welcome home dinner was primarily spent catching up with everyone that they hadn't seen in over six months, so much so that they hardly had time to freshen up. It didn't take long for Chuck to get the story about how his erstwhile mentor came to be there. Jim Green had known where to find Major Banner because he had caught up with him after the war and he'd quickly realised that he'd bitten off more than he could chew with the job of getting the pound gates working, so as soon as the telegraph was active he'd wired Joshua about the problem and Joshua had come straight over to help get them freed up and working.

Unfortunately, Jim and his Engineers had been ordered to go back soon after that, but Joshua had stayed on and worked with the people of the hacienda to get quite a few other things working around the hacienda. Joshua was a widower with nothing to keep him back east as when he came home from the war he'd found that his wife had succumbed to Influenza. He was also well enough off that he didn't need to work, so it hadn't been a difficult decision for him to stay on and do what he could to help out the young man who's always been his favourite apprentice. Joshua and his wife had never had children, and Chuck had become.. well if not like a son, at least like a favourite nephew to him in their time together in the war. When Chuck asked Jerry why he hadn't told him that Joshua was there, Jerry said that the Major had wanted it to be a surprise for him when he got home. Chuck wasn't overly pleased with him but accepted that.

While they were doing that, John and the others got the stock offloaded from the Memphis Belle and settled into their paddocks (or ponds in the case of the catfish), and Scottie and his team shut down the Belle. With that done, everyone got cleaned up and came up to the house for the feast, as the rest of what was on the Belle could wait.

Over dinner and afterwards, most of the talk was about the adventures they'd had in South America (leaving out what the girls had had to do in Brazil and their little naval battle, of course). The others had a hard time believing what they were being told about the jungles of South America, taking weeks to steam up and down the Amazon River, the wild ride through some parts of the Straits of Magellan, or the strange beasts they'd seen, but they accepted the stories on faith. They'd had come to accept that with this group, one just had to expect the extraordinary, as that was what they were. It didn't hurt that they had lots of photographs of this adventure to share as well (excluding the ones of the naval battle and the like).

* * *

While the others were sharing stories and laughing though, John, Mei, Ellie and Jane had gone off for a rather more serious discussion. Ellie and Mei already shared John's concerns about Sarah's pregnancy, and Jane did as well, now that she'd seen how big Sarah had gotten. Hattie, Zondra, Tom, Andy and the men, they knew little about babies or their development, so they had no idea of how unusual this was. They left Adele out of this as they knew she would share anything said with Sarah and Chuck.

Ellie pointed out that Chuck and Sarah must know, so they must be putting on a brave face, or trying to pretend that it wasn't so.

They all jumped when they heard. "Of course we know! We're just trying not to panic, because that won't help Sarah or the babies!" behind them.

Ellie rushed to Chuck and embraced him. "Oh Chuck, I'm sure Sarah and the…." She stopped. "Babies?"

Chuck nodded "Yes, Sarah can sense them, and they communicate to a degree with her, but she's confused, as she says that sometimes it seems that it's a boy and a girl, sometimes that it's two girls, and sometimes that it's two boys. I can feel them too but not as strong as she can, which makes sense, given that they're in her body not mine, so can Adele sometimes."

(He didn't bring up the fact that they'd thought that Adele was pregnant too until Ellie examined her and determined that the only physical evidence was the fact that her breasts were growing larger. From the Daemons' memories they discovered that this was what was called a phantom pregnancy, when another woman is so close to the mother-to-be that they can start showing signs of pregnancy themselves.)

Ellie nodded distractedly, and then went on. "As I was saying, I'm sure that Sarah and the babies will be fine, in fact we'll make sure of it!"

Chuck looked at her. "Yes, that's why you're out here, talking about how worried you are!"

John stepped forward, grasping his shoulder. "Of course we're worried! Sarah, both of you, are going through this and it's not normal, the way it's going, you know that as well as we do. But Ellie's right, we'll do everything that we can to make sure that they get through this OK."

Chuck nodded resignedly. "Yes, I know you'll all do whatever you can. I'm sorry, I'm just worried, terrified really, about the chance of losing her. All I can do to stop her seeing my fear is bury myself in work."

At that moment, they heard another voice behind them. "Do you really think that I didn't see it?"

Chuck let go of Ellie and turned to embrace her, Adele stepping back to give him room. Sarah kissed him and went on.

"Of course I could see it, but confronting you about it would have made you lose control, which would in turn would have made me lose control."

Tears streamed from Chuck's eyes as he tried to apologise, but she kissed him again and said.

"Shush, it's OK, I knew that you weren't trying to ignore me. I knew _why_ , I just need to have you _there_ with me, not somewhere else trying to hide your fears from me."

"Sarah? Chuck said something about you not being sure whether the babies are boys or girls?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes, sometimes they feel like girls, sometimes like boys, and sometimes one of each. There's a possibility that they're both, and that frightens me, it won't change the way that I love them" (Chuck squeezed her and whispered "W _e_ love them!" in her ear and she kissed him quick before continuing) "the way that we love them one little bit, but it could make life difficult for them, and I don't want to see that, so I wish that they could settle into one or the other."

Ellie looked stricken and reached out to squeeze her arm. "You know that I will love my nieces or nephews just as much, no matter what they are, don't you?" Sarah nodded with a smile.

Ellie, Jane and John hugged and kissed Sarah then, and Ellie and Jane hugged and kissed Chuck as well (John settled for squeezing his shoulder), before they all went back to the welcome home dinner that they'd slipped out of to talk.

* * *

The next morning, Chuck and Sarah had a private talk with Joseph, Scottie and Tom.

Something that they'd brought with them from New York on the Belle was the Daemons' chests with the ancient manuscripts, treasures and weapons that had been in their vault in Memphis House. These helped convince Joseph and Scottie just how it was that Chuck and Sarah knew so much that they shouldn't be able to.

At first, they had as much trouble as everyone else, believing what they were being told, but the ancient manuscripts and artefacts helped convince them. This was an eye opener to Tom as well, because he'd never seen most of these before as they'd been stored away in the vault and Chuck hadn't shown them to anyone but Ellie and Sarah.

They did get side tracked into discussions about the great library of Alexandria (and Pergamum, which was almost as large), which both of the Daemons had spent considerable time in, and Joseph and Tom were excited to see a few of the scrolls that the Daemons had taken from the libraries. Scottie had been more interested in Aristotle and Leonardo Da Vinci's notes and drawings that Chuck's Daemon had kept (even if Chuck had to translate them for him).

They spent a couple of hours talking about what had happened, and the breadth and age of the memories that they'd acquired. With Joseph, it helped him to be able to put together what they were being told now with what Chuck had told him about almost being de-masted while rounding Cape Horn in a clipper, as that could not have happened without this being true. At the end of it, Joseph and Scottie were dazed, but they accepted the truth of what they'd been told.

With that out of the way, they went for a walk to show them around the hacienda, as they and their wives would have to choose whether they would live in the 'big house', or in the rows of married peoples' houses outside. Both men said that they believed the decision would be to go with their own houses, but they'd leave that up to their wives.

They brought the other men who had agreed to be the core of the Memphis Belle's on-going crew into these discussions too. These men were Scottie's three best engineers, and of course George, Edward and Daniel as the First, Second and Third Officers, or rather First, Second and Third Mates as they were going to be as civilians.

There were another half a dozen of the seamen staying on as crew, and a dozen of the Marines would be staying on as well, joining Tom's platoon. The fourteen who made up the Belle's main crew could run her by themselves easily, but on the voyage around South America the Marines and Tom's men had worked with the crew and learnt how to perform most of the duties on the ship quite ably, so they would be trading off with the seamen to crew the Belle when she was doing her runs (Scottie had already claimed Moses and Weed as apprentice engineers). They were also planning to let any of the girls or others on the hacienda who were interested get trained to be part of the crew to give everyone a chance to be involved.

This was why eight of Tom's men were going with the Belle as crew when she steamed up to San Francisco to deliver the crew who were going back east, along with Joseph and Scottie to the train. Bill and seven troopers were also going with them to serve as escorts to bring Beatrice, Annella and the other wives back, along with their things, the rest of the vapor carriages, and everything else from Scottie's engineering workshop at Paterson's (plus the equipment and materials for building aluminium hulled boats).

They would have a fairly sizeable freight train bringing all of this back to the west coast, and they weren't certain that the Belle would be able to carry it all when it arrived, if not the troopers would stay on in San Francisco to guard the rest until she returned.

* * *

One job that took priority over all other work was installing an elevator to take Sarah upstairs to their suite, because it was quite apparent to everyone that it wouldn't be too long before she would be in no state to climb the stairs to their rooms on the first floor. The elevator that went in would be replaced with something more elegant when time permitted, as it was rather rough and ready, but Chuck's only priority at that point was to look after his wife. Using materials he and Scottie had brought to set up new workrooms at the hacienda and a spare clockwork engine and other parts for the Belle's elevators, with help from Scottie, Joshua and some of the men Chuck had the elevator installed and working to his satisfaction the day after they arrived. When Chuck pronounced it safe and workable, they knew that it was, _especially_ those who remembered him testing the elevator in Memphis house with over a ton of gun safe in it!

Chuck and Sarah's suite upstairs was laid out similar to the best of the suites in the hotels they'd stayed in over the past couple of years, two bedrooms, a well appointed bathroom and a large sitting room. They'd chosen these rooms because they liked the view and the breeze they got up there in summer (which in Los Angeles was as good as all year 'round). So with the elevator for Sarah, she and Chuck (and Adele, as she'd hardly left Sarah's side since she started to show. This was nothing new however as she had been sharing rooms and cabins, and beds too when the nightmares from her previous life struck her and she needed comforting, with them since she came into their life. Adele in turn provided a sounding board, willing ear and shoulder to cry on for Sarah, and Chuck too when he needed one. She and Sarah had become very close, and she felt more comfortable and safe with them than she did, or ever had, with anyone else) were quite comfortable there. Adele was making Sarah whatever she had a hankering for, and if she didn't have the necessary makings at the hacienda, someone would be sent racing into Los Angeles to get them. The kitchen's pantry got expanded in many interesting ways as Adele added to it in her attempts to anticipate what Sarah might want.

One thing was certain, they were home for a while, because neither Sarah or Chuck were going anywhere until after their children were born and Ellie, Adele, John, Hattie and Zondra were just as determined to be there for the babies' birth.

* * *

It took over a day and a half to offload everything from the Belle, because they had a hard time getting Captain Stevens and his men away from the Belle so that they could offload the guns and ammunition in private. Captain Stevens obviously believed that something was going on and he wanted to know what it was, even though he'd been specifically ordered _not_ to try and look into anything at the hacienda without Colonel Barton's permission. Chuck, John and Tom were trying to work out how to keep him away from the lake when Joshua caught Chuck's eye and let him know a way to do this via the old hand signals they'd used on missions for the regiment when they couldn't afford to be heard. Chuck relayed the message to John and Tom with the hand signals _they_ used, and Tom announced that they were doing an inspection of the work that had been done while they were away. Stevens tried to leave some men behind to watch what was going on but Tom ordered him to bring them as his commanding officer.

Chuck didn't have to pretend to be angry when the usual answer to how much of the work that had been accomplished in the past six months was done by Captain Stevens and his men was 'nothing'. The excuse given was that they had been assigned to guard the hacienda and that was what they'd been doing, but Stevens didn't like it at all when Joshua asked how they were guarding the hacienda when his men were at the hacienda itself trying to make time with the Chinese girls? _That_ made Chuck explode, and he called Anna down to get the details of what had been happening. When she confirmed that the soldiers had been trying more and more to interfere with the girls even though Stevens had been given strict orders to make sure his men left them alone, Chuck told Tom to get rid of them and Tom told Stevens to tell his men to pack their bags, because they would be going back to San Francisco on the Belle!

Stevens tried to protest and say that his men weren't doing anything wrong, but just then one of the Belle's crew came up to give Chuck the pre-agreed signal to say that all the guns and ammunition had been locked away, so they went back to the hacienda to wire the President and inform him that Captain Stevens and his special team had failed to fulfil what was required of them in regard to their duty and behaviour, so they were hereby being ejected from both Major Paterson's command and Colonel Barton's land. Chuck added a message to say that if _any_ of them were seen anywhere near the hacienda or their people again, they were like to be shot on sight, and John added that if any of them told anyone anything about the hacienda and its people, he'd personally track them down and deal with them _and_ the ones who let them. They made sure that Stevens saw both these messages.

The only way the President could respond to that was to confirm that Captain Stevens and his men were being recalled, and say that someone would arrange for train tickets for Captain Stevens and his men when they arrived in San Francisco. By that stage the Belle had been unloaded and the ship's water topped off (they had plenty of supplies left for the few days it would take to go to San Francisco and back), so Stevens and his men were given fifteen minutes to be at the boat with their belongings. As he was by now realising how much trouble he was in, they were there inside fifteen minutes and were sent straight to the hold, being told to stay there and that the crew areas aft were off limits.

This was made clear to them when they were given a day's rations and toilet buckets and told not to leave the hold, but what they didn't know was that a dispatch pouch with records of everything they did (as well as the detailed reports and photographs from the voyage, which included a number of pictures that showed exactly what had happened with and to the two Brazilian warships) would be delivered to the President before they reached Washington. By then everyone else had said their goodbyes, so the Belle pulled away from the dock as soon as the gangways were aboard and secured. As before, it took about half an hour to open and close all the pound gates to let the Belle out onto the river. They left one of the ship's boats behind at the hacienda, so that it could be used for transport to and from Los Angeles if required.

Before they left, the crew members who were going back east were reminded (in a rather more friendly tone) about the agreements that they'd signed which stipulated that they would never say _anything_ about anything they witnessed on the voyage on the Memphis Belle but the warning wasn't necessary as none of them would go against the Commodore, or this group now. They had shared an epic voyage (and an epic battle) with these people so they were all crew now, and they did not betray their crew! The main reason most of them were going back was that they had responsibilities back east that they could not neglect any longer.

The trip down to the mouth of the Los Angeles river took less than half the time that the trip up river had as they knew the state of the river now, and the Belle was riding higher without a load. The Memphis Belle was starting what was to be her normal duty, passages to and fro between the hacienda and San Francisco.

* * *

Once the Memphis Belle had departed, they hitched a couple of passenger trolleys up to Diablo and Bruja so that the core group could go for a proper tour of the hacienda (Sarah was in no state to climb into Bruja's saddle, especially when she hadn't been regularly ridden for six months, but she wanted to have Bruja near her).

The developments that had been made at the hacienda over the past six months were remarkable, much of what they'd planted just before they'd left had grown, been harvested and replanted two or three times now, most of their broodmares and cattle, pig and goat stock were pregnant, and the poultry was expanding quickly so all in all, the hacienda was in a pretty good space.

The fish in the lake had also given them the idea to create additional dams for fish farms (they'd known about this and thought it was a good idea, so Jerry had brought back quite a few blue catfish when he and his men brought the horses and carriages to the hacienda, and they'd caught some of the giant catfish of the Amazon live and brought them back as well to stock their fish farms), so while they were still a ways off making the hacienda into a profitable concern, they were getting closer to producing all of what they needed to feed their people, which was the more important issue to them. If they _had_ been worried about money, Jane had sold the rancho for a handy profit after everyone moved to the hacienda, and that would have covered their costs for a while.

After they'd done the tour of the estate, Chuck and Sarah started going through their business matters with Jane (she'd been handling this on their behalf for the past six months), and catching up on other issues with their law firm and Uncle Sam. Having a telegraph station at the hacienda made things a lot easier, as they could send or receive messages at any time without any interference or delays from anyone else.

For all of her mobility constraints though, Sarah was determined not to be idle, and there were a couple of tables in their sitting room that were constantly strewn with paperwork, one for their own business, and one for Uncle Sam's. Chuck had also ran the wires into their rooms to install another telegraph station in there. Both he and Sarah were quite capable of sending and receiving messages so this was more convenient for them, though he did add a switch in the line to allow the telegraph equipment to be disconnected so that it wouldn't disturb Sarah when she was trying to rest.

Uncle Sam only began to understand that there was something out of the ordinary with Sarah's pregnancy when he called for them to come to Washington to explain their findings and the events of the South America trip and Chuck, John, Hattie and Zondra flat refused. When he read the message that Chuck had sent 'Travel to Washington is not possible, Black Widow's condition makes travel unsafe for her and I will not leave her in this condition. Doc, Bear, Blaze and Belladonna (Zondra) have also indicated that they will not leave. Elder', Uncle Sam grew extremely worried, as he knew they wouldn't take this stance if Sarah's condition weren't serious.

That prompted him to send a message to say that he was sending his best doctors, but when it was pointed out that they couldn't know more than Doc, Black Widow and Elder, they compromised and Ellie spent a lot of time at their main telegraph station with one of the men to operate the telegraph, explaining the situation to Uncle Sam's doctors and answering their questions.

Meanwhile, Chuck had been thinking about the fact that the boat was the smoothest and fastest way for Sarah to be moved if needed, but for the delays added by the pound gates, so with Joshua's help he modified the mechanisms to wind them open and closed faster to speed up that process. What he used for this was large clockwork engines to open and close the pound gates much faster. With these clockwork engines, it was possible to get through the locks in less than twenty minutes, instead of the thirty it took with people winding the cranks. That made him feel a little better, as he was dearly worried about Sarah and her pregnancy.

Through all of this, they had a considerable amount of work to be done, because as well as the telegraph (which was going most of the time), dispatches were coming and going daily between them and Uncle Sam's offices, and Sarah, Chuck and the others were working through the dispatches. While this didn't reap the results that they did when they were in the field the sad fact was that, even under these constraints, they were still the most effective team that Uncle Sam had at his disposal.

Sarah didn't miss the fact that between Chuck, Adele, Ellie, John, Hattie, Zondra and Mei (and Jane too when she was out there), she was never left alone, there wasn't a moment that there wasn't someone no more than a room away. Normally this would have aggravated her, but as she knew that it was because they were so worried about her and the pregnancy she let it go, because truth be told, she was worried as well.

* * *

Even though Sarah's mobility was limited, and she definitely couldn't ride, she just had to get out of the house sometimes. One thing she'd been happy to confirm soon after they returned home was that Bruja remembered her, so whenever Sarah wanted to go out for a jaunt, they'd hitch Bruja up to one of the passenger trollies for her.

Now that they were using, and relying on, the tracks and cars so much, Chuck was coming to see two things. The first was that, quite aside from freeing up all the pound gates, Joshua had done a hell of a lot of work around the hacienda. For a start, he'd gone around and ensured that all the rail switches on the levees were working freely and properly, which was no small feat, as most of the track intersections had four, three way stub switches to be freed up (to allow the cars to go straight ahead or turn to left or right when approaching from each direction), while the rest 'merely' had three switches, as they were 'T' intersections. (Joshua had actually enjoyed this, as his roots were in railroad engineering, but after he lost his leg in the war, he'd branched out into civil and mechanical engineering. These had given him the knowledge and skills needed to create the dams etc on the hacienda and build the house and dock in town.)

There was one major piece of work that stood out though, a thirty two foot wide ramp with log retaining walls like the levees that had been dug across the lake from the pound lock. This ramp led up to doors just as wide on one of the larger outbuildings and three sets of rails, well over a hundred yards long, had been laid from inside the building down into the lake. When asked, Joshua explained that he'd needed to rebuild the hacienda's ferry in order to use it as a working platform to build Casa Memphis's dock. He needed special equipment for that, so the easiest way to do the job was to haul the ferry up into the engineering building. He'd waved at the rails and said. "The slipway was the best way to do that."

These gifts from Joshua had made things a lot simpler for their people, as they now just had to link up a few trolly cars and hitch up the mules to haul them out to their work sites. (They also had a number of hand cars that they could use when the load wasn't enough to justify hitching up the mules.) When they came up to a track intersection, so long as both switches were already set to the track that they wanted they'd just drive the cars straight on through on the way to where they were working, if not they'd stop, throw the switches to the correct track and then proceed.

This also meant that Sarah could get a break out of the house when she needed to without much bother. When she wanted to go out, someone would go to the roundhouse, push one of the passenger cars out onto the turntable, turn that around to line up with the doors, hitch up Bruja and drive her and it on out of the roundhouse and up to the house. Of course, if the passenger car and turntable had been left in the correct position as they were supposed to be, they'd just have to hitch up Bruja and drive her straight on out. Chuck, Adele or someone else would always go with Sarah to throw the stitches and unhitch Bruja and move her around to the other end of the car if required to come back.

Joshua had had less trouble freeing up the turntable in the roundhouse than he'd had with the switches on the levees, as the roof of the roundhouse had remained intact, so the turntable, rails and cars inside had all been kept out of the weather. The roundhouse also served as the carriage house and stables for the hacienda, as the hand cars, flatcars/gondola cars and passenger cars took up rather less than half of the available space in there.

The other thing that Chuck had come to realise was that whoever it was that the original haciendo had got to create the levees, irrigation and navigation canals and locks and lay the network of two foot gauge tramways that criss-crossed the farming areas along the tops of the levees (not to mention building the lightweight wooden trolly cars to run on those tramways) had been, and hopefully still was, one hell of an engineer. Everything he'd created had been well planned with the optimal layout, and the construction was so solid that after over twenty years of being left to fall apart, most of it had still been in good enough shape to be workable.

Anyway, thanks to the original builder and Joshua's efforts, not only did they have a ready transport system to that helped them effectively work the farming areas, but Sarah could get out of the house and comfortably tour the estate, something she felt she desperately needed to retain some semblance of sanity whenever she'd been cooped up inside for too long. As it was usually Chuck who went with her, this also gave them a chance to relax together.

Before Chuck had discovered any of this though, he'd started work on the only other job that he allowed to take him away from Sarah (and then only when she was asleep), he built Joshua a new leg with all the improvements that he'd come up with for them after the war. Joshua tried to tell him that it wasn't necessary, as the one he built him in the war was better than any other he'd seen, but when Chuck finished it and fitted it to him he swallowed his words, because the new leg was as much of an improvement over his old leg as _it_ was over any other he'd seen.

* * *

Ever since they moved out to the hacienda, they'd been working to establish a base in Los Angeles itself for the group, as they really needed to have someone in town to handle their deliveries and business. Mike and Al had been handling their deliveries and Jane had been handling the business side of this for them, but they weren't really part of their team, so there was much that they couldn't know about. Through Jane, they'd acquired a large block of land that was suitable for their purposes, sitting above a wide and deep part of the river atop a big enough rise to be well clear of any floods and with a steep drop to the river, so that they could to put in a long and solid private dock right across it for their boats and still use most of the block up top. Chuck had drawn up all the plans, but they'd hardly started the work before they were called back to New Orleans. This was why Chuck had been so surprised to see the house and dock when they came through Los Angeles, because unbeknownst to him, Joshua had taken over the job and had finished most of it with men and girls from the hacienda and the equipment he got in to do it by the time the Memphis Belle arrived.

Joshua had had the same problem as Charlie, in that he didn't have the time or resources to build the engines and equipment they needed to do all the work at the hacienda, but he had the advantage of knowledge that Charlie didn't have. He knew through his contacts in the Corps of Engineers that after the war the army had mothballed most of the traction engines and steam donkeys that they used for major engineering works in the war, and Jim Green had been directly assigned here by the President, so he had a way to pass the request through him. They talked this over with Jane, Al and Mike and Jane told them that she had access to accounts to pay for the equipment that they needed, so Joshua decided that as he really only had one shot at this, he may as well aim high.

He put together the request to obtain mothballed army engineering equipment, the primary item being one of the last and biggest model of the engineering road locomotive traction engines with the triple expansion engine, superheater and feedwater heater (these were the size and power of a powerful railroad locomotive), with everything that came with them, extension chimney, full-length canopy, dynamo, ploughing engine winch drums, front and rear cranes, steam shovel, balance plough with ripper and scraper blades, pile driver, drag excavator buckets, steamroller conversion, sawmill equipment and road and Dreadnaught endless rail wheels, plus the sleeping van and wagon trailer to carry the water tank and all the attachments, both with road and Dreadnaught wheels too. He added to this with another smaller single driver road locomotive traction engine with the extension chimney, full-length canopy, dynamo, ploughing engine winch drums, front and rear cranes, drag excavator buckets and wagon trailer, with both road wheels and Dreadnaught wheels on the locomotive and the trailer. The list was rounded out bya few high capacity pumps, a big cement mixer and at least seven or eight of the later model steam donkeys.

Jim Green's eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw what was being requested, but he submitted it to the President with Jane's note that she could authorise payment for the items. He was even more surprised when the quick response came back to say that the request was being processed and the items would be shipped to Los Angeles before the week was out.

The traction engines and everything else were there within a month, and their first jobs were to dredge the lake and canal, dig the ramp and build the cofferdam and retaining walls for the slipway at the lake, and dig the dams and build the retaining walls for the fish farms. Then they went into town to do the excavation work and drive the pile driver and saw mill at the Casa Memphis site.

They dug into the embankment to build the dock, and to protect it from the floods they'd added a solid log retaining wall, high enough to handle any expected flood levels and well anchored into the face and river bottom. This retaining wall also extended far enough up and downstream to stabilise the embankment. The face of their dock was built the same way (it had originally formed a cofferdam to let them empty the space behind it out and build a solid base for the dock with the rock that was excavated), while the deck was made of Portland Cement a foot deep, so it was rather solid. Access to the dock was via retractable stairs across the face of the cut (using the derrick to lift them up above the floods and stop people getting in via the dock), and there was also a lifting cage that was hauled up the face of the cut on a pair of rails.

Andre's Creole townhouse in New Orleans had brought back happy memories of their youth for John, Sarah, Chuck and Ellie, so the house Chuck had designed was largely inspired by that. Two and a half storeys high, built around a courtyard, they'd even sent the wrought iron railings and the like that were popular in New Orleans back to Los Angeles to finish it off properly. The name also came from New Orleans, as it was called Casa Memphis after their base behind Andre's house. Joshua had mainly stuck to Chuck's plans, the only changes he made were those which resulted in a significant improvement (like the retaining wall, lifting cage, retractable stairs and storerooms under the house).

On one side of the house, a carriageway went down to the level below the house, where they had the stables, carriage house, quarters for the men stationed there, and storerooms, all built around the rear courtyard, with some beneath the house.

The derrick that had been erected for the dragline excavators and pile drivers out on the terrace that filled the remaining space between the buildings on the lower level and the top of the retaining wall could reach out far enough to move cargo (or whatever) to or from ships tied up at the dock, so it was left in place when that work was finished. The steam donkey that Joshua installed to drive the winches for the derrick and lifting cage would probably be replaced by one of Scottie's quicker starting vapor engines, and the steam engine could go back to the hacienda to power equipment there. They also added a telegraph station to the house, to communicate with the hacienda and everywhere else.

Building the house, retaining wall and dock had taken up until the end of the six months they'd been gone, and the house took a few more weeks to finish after they returned, but now that it was done Sarah and Chuck talked John and Mei into moving in there and handling that side of their affairs just before they left to get Kathleen and Alex. The reason for doing this was that both John and Mei were shy and private people, and because of this their relationship wasn't moving forward while they were always under the eye of the others. They did need someone with authority to handle things at the town end for them, and John was perfect for that, but it was more to try and give them the privacy that they needed.

* * *

Joseph's train with those moving across the country was back in San Francisco a little over four and a half weeks after they went east and the Belle was sent up to San Francisco to get them.

At that time, there was a shake-up to their plans, because while John had been adamant that he wasn't going anywhere until after Sarah's babies were born, as soon as Kathleen and Alex heard about how things were going with Sarah's pregnancy, they were adamant about to being there for the babies' birth. Kathleen said that they'd just come across on the train themselves and meet them in San Francisco, but John reject that idea. Sarah saw how worried and conflicted he was about this, so she told him to go and collect them, him and Mei both.

That was why John, Mei and four troopers came to San Francisco on the Memphis Belle when she came up to collect the others. To save time, they'd made arrangements to take one of the Pullman's Hotel cars that had been on Joseph's train back east, even though it was much too large for them.

Behind them, as they headed east, it took a day and a half to unload everything from the train and load the Belle, but they managed to get everything into one shipload, just. She was the most heavily laden she'd ever been, riding quite low in the water. The First Mate and Second Engineer were happy to hand the Belle over to Joseph and Scottie for the voyage home, but Beatrice and Annella were _not_ impressed with their husbands' excitement about having the chance to properly test the Belle's handling at sea with such a heavy load as this.

The passage to Los Angeles was markedly slower than the passage to San Francisco had been, and even slower as they were making their way up the river to Los Angeles itself. The boat they left at the hacienda was tied up at the dock when the Memphis Belle arrived, but it was up at the top end of the dock, so there was plenty of room to bring in the Belle behind it (they could have had all three of the boats there and still fitted the Belle in, as they'd made the dock 300 foot long in case they needed to have things shipped from San Francisco or the east coast on a full sized steamer).

They had to offload some of the cargo at Casa Memphis (mostly the heavy engineering equipment and materials from Scottie's workshop) to make her ride higher, as there wasn't enough water in the river to safely take her upriver with that load. Another reason for pulling in there was to wire the hacienda so that they'd be expecting them.

About six hours later they sent the message to the hacienda and received confirmation that the locks would be ready for them, and with that they cast off and headed up river.

When they reached the canal into the hacienda, Joseph was shocked to see that Charles and Joshua had installed extra lock drop gates in the pound lock in the five weeks that they'd been away, obviously they weren't finished yet, as the main pound gates were still being used, but he could see that they were largely complete.

When the Belle was all the way into the lock, the outer gates were wound shut behind them (rather quickly with clockwork engines, Joseph noted). Once those gates were shut, more clockwork engines wound the inner gates open, and with that they took the Belle through to the other end of the canal, repeating the process there, and they were passing through the dock to the lake in two thirds of the time it had taken a month ago!

As soon as the gangway was in place, Joseph, Beatrice and Annella rushed up to the dock to see Sarah (and Chuck, but Sarah had priority, as Joseph been as worried about her as the rest of the 'family' had been). Scottie of course wouldn't be up until he'd supervised shutting the Belle's steam plant down. When Beatrice and Annella saw Sarah though, they were shocked by the size of her, as she hadn't been showing at all when they last saw her about five months before.

The other crew member's wives were introduced to Chuck and Sarah, then they headed up to the house. They had one of the passenger cars with the back to back seating down the centreline hitched up to Bruja, so Beatrice, Annella and the other wives joined Sarah in the passenger car for the ride back to the big house.

The festivities were quietly proceeding when Scottie and the rest of the crew arrived. The Belle had been shut down and their main luggage had been offloaded. Everything else could wait, but they knew that it would take one or two more trips to retrieve what they'd offloaded at Casa Memphis.

As they knew that they'd have a fair crowd there that night, and the Memphis Belle would be arriving late, a few of the rows of married quarters had been readied for the couples. They had explained that this was only for the night and everyone could make their own choices in the morning, but Beatrice, Annella and the other wives had a quick look around and said that this would do them nicely then and there, just as their husbands had said they would, over a month ago.

While everyone all enjoyed catching up though, Sarah was tired and the new arrivals were quite ready for a good night's sleep, so it wasn't a late night. They all wandered off to their beds, with the promise of seeing everyone in the morning.


	2. This Isn't a Normal Pregnancy

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

When they were getting ready to take the Belle back downriver to collect what they'd left at Casa Memphis, Joshua suggested that they could save time by taking the ferry down to bring some of the cargo up and Joseph agreed. He knew that Joshua had had to rebuild the ferry when he wanted to use it to work on the dock at Casa Memphis because while the cast iron ferry deck under the wood decking was fine, the pontoons had rotted away and needed to be replaced, so he'd used drums underneath the ferry deck to float it around to the lake and converted it from a pontoon ferry to a punt to strengthen it and increase its load carrying capacity (which also made it it ride higher). He'd built a strong punt hull to the same shape and dimensions that was separated into multiple compartments by crossed bulkheads that the ferry deck sat on and then mounted the deck in the hull. He'd also made it self propelled by fitting a steam donkey engine, propeller and rudder on each side to drive it one way or the other while he was doing that. The ferry had apparently carried over a hundred tons easily in its trials so it should be quite capable of carrying whatever the Belle couldn't fit in on its 60 by 24 foot deck, and truth be told as a nautical engineer Joseph was quite interested in seeing how the 66 by 28 foot (well, 72 by 28 if you included the ramps at each end) punt handled on the river with the simple engine and rudder setup for each direction of travel on each side that Joshua used.

In its original pole operated form this ferry and its ferry slips on either side of the river had been an incredible feat of engineering for the mid Forties. For a start, the engineer who created them had made both ferry slips into locks by fitting lock gates to protect them and the ferry from the floods, and also push the ferry into the shallow 'v' cut out in the ferry slip aprons to facilitate the alignment needed for a rail ferry, and splitting the tracks leading down to the ferry slip apron on each side of the river with three way stub switches and then using extra stub switches on each set of rails to quickly line them up with the rails welded to the cast iron plates that made up the ramps and deck of the ferry. The ramps at each end of the ferry were raised to 45 degrees with geared capstans to seal off the ends of the ferry deck. There were so many aspects of this that were brilliant, the pound gates, the way the shape of the ferry ends locked it into position, welding the rails to the cast iron ramps and deck to strengthen them and ensure that the rails stayed aligned…. Joseph had to agree with Joshua and Charles, whoever the engineer who created all of this at the hacienda had been, he was one _hell_ of an engineer.

Joshua took Moses with him to operate the steam donkey engine on the other side of the ferry in reverse to speed it up a little, and also to help manhandle the cargo as it was being loaded. Joseph had to laugh as he watched the ferry pull straight in to Casa Memphis's dock and tie it up after _they_ had taken over ten minutes to get the Belle turned around and bring her in to the dock, because the ferry had no need to turn around, they'd just use the other engine and rudder to control it on the way back up river. He had watched the ferry as it came downriver too and saw that while it was neither fast nor nimble, Joshua's setup worked quite well to navigate the river.

They decided that it would be a lot quicker and easier to just put the biggest pieces of machinery and frameworks on El Barco (Joshua had asked the men working on it with him what they called a ferry and that's what they told him) while they loaded the rest of it back into the Belle. There was definitely over a hundred tons on the ferry with that load but it wasn't looking heavily laden and Joshua was confident that it would be fine. The ferry did take half an hour longer than the Belle to get back upriver to the hacienda, but that wasn't going that much slower than it normally did, because the steam donkey engines Joshua got from the Army were slow revving, so at best the ferry only did about 6 or 7 knots.

As with the first load that came up on the Belle, they offloaded the heavy cargo onto the 28 foot wide slip cradles that Joshua had created to haul the ferry up into the engineering building to rebuild it, and then hauled the cradles up into the building with the steam donkey driving the equipment in the building.

While the ferry was in the lake, Scottie went over which of the lighter and more powerful vapor engines they could use to replace the steam donkey engines with Joshua. The idea of having more power to work with as well as being quicker starting and easier to run appealed to Joshua (decisions about the ferry were his as he re-created it), and they agreed to fit a pair of the vapor engines they used in the Belle's ship's boats as they were the most powerful vapor engines Scottie had, and this was done in the next week.

They weren't too surprised to see the giant Amazonian catfish thrive when they were transferred to one of the fish farm dams. After all, they'd survived on horse manure, vegetable scraps, offal and whatever fish that the people on the Belle and Bastet (the ship's coon cat) wouldn't eat in barrels for months, so the dam would be heaven for them after that.

* * *

Heading east, John and Mei received telegrams from Hattie when they reached Council Bluffs to say that they were being re-routed via Pullman's home town of Chicago, where they'd be exchanging the Hotel car for a Private car to take them the rest of the way to Connecticut, and then bring them back with Kathleen and Alex. Hattie also told them that they'd be picking up John's Uncle Andre on the way back, because when he'd heard that Sarah was having her babies, he'd wanted to be there for their birth as well and Sarah had agreed.

By the time they'd collected Kathleen and Alex and returned to pick Andre up though, their party had grown again. Jane (or rather, Jeanne) had finally managed to contact Henri to tell him that 'their Elana' was about to have her babies, and he'd wired back saying that he wished that he could see her. Sarah had agreed straight away, because Oncle Henri had been as much a part of her childhood as Tante Jeanne and Oncle Andre had been, and told him when and where to meet Andre. So when John and the others pulled into St Louis, they found the two men chatting like the old friends they were, rather than just Andre.

When they arrived in San Francisco, Kathleen, Alex and Henri were surprised when John and Mei took them to a pier away from the main shipping docks, and even more so when they saw the rather strange looking boat waiting for them, but Andre had seen the Memphis Belle in New Orleans when she'd come through on her way to her maiden voyage and knew that she'd carried them right around South America safely, so he confidently strode straight on board. The others took heart from this and followed him on, to be greeted by Hattie and Tom.

To save time (and because they couldn't tell who had more trunks of clothes, the men or the women), they bundled all the luggage into a cargo net and lowered it into the hold en-mass. Once the hatch cover was closed, a couple of the men quickly bolted it shut while the gangway was swung onto the Belle and secured, then the derrick swung back to the pier to pick up the two men who'd let go the last mooring lines and the Belle pulled away from the dock.

Andre and Henri had spent far more time on boats than Kathleen and Alex had, so they had a better idea of what was normal with boats. That was why they were shocked when the Belle steamed away from San Francisco at more than twice the speed of the river boats they were used to, especially Andre, because he had travelled on the 'fastest ship in the Navy' and knew this boat of their's was _much_ faster! None of them really knew how far San Francisco was from Los Angeles though, so it didn't register on them how significant it was that they swung into San Pedro Bay only twelve hours after leaving San Francisco.

Their guests were a little confused when they just steamed straight past the docks in San Pedro Bay where all the other ships were tied up, but presumed that the Captain must know what he was doing as the Belle headed straight up the river. As they passed through Los Angeles itself, Hattie pointed out Casa Memphis, telling them that this was John and Mei's new home. She waved to the men on the terrace, who called across that they'd let the hacienda know they were coming. Once they were past Los Angeles, Hattie started pointing out the other features of the area, including the Santa Monica Mountains, which the hacienda was behind.

When they reached the canal entrance, John was quite surprised to see that Chuck had gotten the lock drop gates finished while they'd been away, because he hadn't started on the mechanisms when they'd left, but now it appeared that all four of them were working. Obviously Chuck was still worried about Sarah, for all that they were both probably trying to put on a good face, because this was what he did when he was worried, he worked himself to exhaustion.

No sooner had the Belle nosed into the lock than the drop gate was being wound up behind them. As soon as the gate was up far enough, Joseph reversed the Belle back to it and the people on the shore pulled the lever to release the next drop gate, so that the higher water level on the lake side pushed the gate down. With the gate out of the way, Joseph drove the Belle through to the other end, repeating the process, and they were coming up to the dock on the lake within ten minutes. This meant that the drop gates had halved the time again for the boats to get from the river to the dock, so it was only taking a third of the time it had originally.

* * *

When Sarah and Chuck met them at the dock, John could see why Chuck would be worried about Sarah, because she'd gotten noticeably bigger even in the two and a half weeks that he and Mei had been away, and she looked positively drained. None of the newcomers could believe how big she was, especially those who'd seen her only five months before.

They had one of the passenger cars with the back to back seating down the centreline and one of the flat cars (basically a buckboard with train wheels) hitched up to Bruja, so Mei, Hattie and their guests joined Chuck and Sarah in the passenger car and everyone else hopped onto the flat car behind with the luggage for the ride up to the house.

When they got to the house, they noted how quickly Chuck hopped off to help Sarah down, and how quickly and efficiently Ellie and Andy herded their guests off to their rooms so Sarah could lay down for a rest. As soon as he had a chance for a quiet word with Ellie, John pulled her aside to ask how long Sarah had been in this state.

Now that she didn't have the others to put an act on for, she dropped the mask and let him see how worried she was. "It's been almost two weeks now John, the babies are getting bigger and more active, and it's taking so much out of her! I'm certain that there are more than two of them, because I'm sure I can feel more than eight limbs, but they move about too much to clearly identify them."

She looked up in the direction of Sarah and Chuck's rooms. "Chuck's on the verge of falling apart, he tries to keep a good face up for Sarah, but as soon as she's asleep he starts crying, and dives into a working frenzy to try and get his mind off worrying about her."

John nodded. "Yes, I saw that he finished the drop gates while I was away."

Ellie nodded. "And everything else, he's also building something new that's like nothing any of us have seen before, he's been working with the carpenters in the roundhouse on some big frameworks that are made out of that strange wood that he filled the ship with when we were in South America, balsa, I think it was called? Anyway, whatever he's building is enormous, but whenever we ask him about it, he just mutters something about having to be able to get Sarah to help quickly. Even Joseph, Joshua and Scottie can't get through to him, Chuck threw them out when they told him that he needed to stop wasting time on whatever he was building and look after Sarah."

John nodded thoughtfully, and as Chuck and the others were occupied, slipped out to the roundhouse to see just what Chuck was working on. As Ellie said it was big, there were frames that reached most of the way across the roundhouse. He took a closer look at a piece of the framework that was sitting on a workbench, and it appeared that they were gluing thin veneers of some other wood onto the wood it was made of, but when he picked it up he was amazed by how light and strong it was. He looked around for some indication of what all of this was for, but he only found drawings of the frameworks so he gave up and went back to the house.

When dinner time came, Sarah was a little better, but not a lot. She managed to sit and chat through dinner, but afterwards she was so tired that Chuck took her straight back to their rooms to rest. Once they'd left, Kathleen grabbed Ellie and pulled her aside. "Why is she so big Ellie? I was never anywhere near that size, not even when Alex was born, and she's not due for months, is she?"

Ellie shook her head, with tears in her eyes. "She's supposed to be due in about a month. She's having at least two babies though, and I believe it's more than two, but they keep moving too much to be sure."

"She's just so drained most of the time, the only time that she improves is when she lays down with Chuck for a while, she wakes up revitalised after that. He doesn't want her to see him fall apart though, so he often slips out while she's asleep and works himself in a frenzy on that project of his, trying to keep up a brave face for her when she's awake."

Kathleen looked at her. "But it's better for Sarah if he stays with her?"

Ellie nodded. "It certainly seems to be, the longer they're together, the better she is in the morning."

"Well he has to stay with her then!"

"We've all tried to tell him that, but he believes that it would harm her more if he falls apart in front of her, and this work is how he shores up the brave face he puts on."

Kathleen scowled. "We'll see about that!"

She looked around, and spying the one she was looking for, she called out "Johnny!" When he looked up, she waved him over urgently.

Hattie and Mei had looked up at the call, and came over to join them, correctly supposing what this was about. They'd been discussing what Ellie told Kathleen for about twenty minutes when Hattie spied Chuck slipping out to the roundhouse again, so they followed him to have it out with him about this.

When they confronted Chuck in the roundhouse, John was taken aback by the abject despair in his eyes. This was a man who was deathly afraid of losing everything that meant anything to him.

Not sure how to handle that, John gruffly asked "What's all this for then?" as he waved at the frames that hung above them.

Chuck glanced up listlessly and said "An atmotic ship", when the others looked at him in bemusement he clarified "An airship".

John looked at him. "And why is this worth abandoning Sarah when she needs you?"

Chuck looked outraged. "I'm _not_ abandoning her! This is _for_ her, to get her to where she can get the help she needs in time!"

John looked up again. "When will it be ready then?"

Chuck looked terrified. "A month or two, I need to finish the frames, get the envelopes sewn and make up mechanisms to drive the propellers with the vapor engines from the boats."

Ellie stepped in then. "Oh Chuck, you know we don't have that long! I know that it's supposedly almost a month before Sarah's due, but I doubt that it will be more than a couple of weeks!"

Chuck shook his head. "No! No. That can't happen! I need to get her to where she can be looked after, where she'll be safe!"

The others looked at each other, only now realising that his terror at the thought of losing Sarah was stripping him of his reason. This was the most he'd said to them on the subject so they hadn't realised how far gone he was before this. John stepped up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders to make him look at him.

"Chuck, snap out of it! You know that the babies aren't going to wait for you to build this thing, and what's more, deep down you must know that the help that Sarah needs is right here, it's _here_." (poking him in the chest) "We're the best hope she has, y _ou're_ the best hope she has, but you have to stop wasting time on this" (waving at the frames) "and give her what she needs if you want to save her!"

"I have no idea why, I suspect that it has something to do with what the two of you have inside of you, but surely you can see as well as we do how she gets better, she picks up when she's with you. _T_ _hat's_ what she needs from you to survive this Chuck, stay with her night and day and give her the energy to get through this!"

Kathleen wanted to ask what Johnny meant by what they had inside of them, but sensed that it was a big secret.

Chuck nodded numbly, raising his head to look at John through his tears. "I can't lose her!"

John nodded, saying "Then stay with her, and don't leave her side!" as he pushed him towards the door.

Ellie shot John a look of thanks as she hurried after Chuck and took his arm to steer him back to the house and to his wife.

John slumped into a chair when they left, spent. Hattie came up to embrace him, whispering "Thank you Johnny!" as she kissed him on the cheek, and Kathleen hugged him as well, saying.

"You did a good thing here Johnny, I doubt that anyone else could have gotten through to him the way that you did."

Hattie shook her head. "No, we've all been trying to tell him that all the while that you were away, but he hasn't been able to see anything but his plan to build this thing and whisk her off to some fairyland where she will be safe." She glowered up at the frames. "I just want to burn the damned thing!"

John shook his head tiredly as he looked up as well. "No, Chuck's brilliant, you've seen the things he's created, between the Memphis Belle and everything else. I'll bet that this thing will change the world, and it will be a joyous day when we watch Chuck, Sarah and their family flying off in it."

With that he stood up, and they extinguished the lamps and closed up the roundhouse before heading back to the house. Ellie was waiting for them, and as soon as they came in, she came up to John, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek before embracing him. Her fervent "Thank you!" was slightly muffled by her face in his chest, but he heard.

After what they'd been through that night John needed a drink, so he grabbed a tumbler and a large decanter of whiskey. Hattie decided to join him, grabbing the vodka and a glass, and though they weren't really drinkers, Ellie, Mei and Kathleen decided to join in as well, grabbing the brandy and glasses before they all retired to the sitting room, where Tom, Andy and Zondra joined them.

John downed a couple of tumblers of whiskey and started on his third as Hattie told the others how John had managed to get through to Chuck where they couldn't, and Tom, Andy and Zondra added their thanks to him, as they'd all been getting worried about Sarah (and Chuck) too.

He waved their thanks away, but pointed to Ellie with the glass in his hand when they were done and said. "You know that they won't be able to relax and concentrate on each other with all these people in the house, I'm sure that they'd be better off if we were all out of the way."

Ellie nodded at that. "Yes, you're probably right John, but how can we make that happen?"

Hattie piped up then. "Well you need to stay of course Ellie, which means that Andy will be staying too. Joshua, Joseph and Scottie are running things here at the moment so they need to stay, but Johnny and Mei should be going back to Casa Memphis, and there's plenty of room for Kathleen, Alex, Andre, Henri, Zondra, Tommy and I to stay there as well, that should take some of the load off them. Tommy and I can come out with the dispatches each day and get some work in while Johnny and Mei show our guests the sights of Los Angeles, they can spend time with Jane and they can still come out to visit. Visits shouldn't hurt Sarah, as long as we're not under her feet all the time."

They all looked at each other, nodding, that could work. With that agreed, it was decided that they'd leave in the morning after they told Chuck and Sarah. When Ellie raised the question of telling Alex, Andre and Henri, Kathleen said she'd explain it to Alex (of course), while John drained his tumbler and said that he'd be back in a few minutes, heading off to tell his Oncle Andre what had been decided, and why, planning to get him to explain it to Henri. He was back inside ten minutes, job done, and both men understood and agreed with the plan. With that, they all went off to bed.

* * *

In the morning, Sarah was looking a lot better at the breakfast table, so they could see that their plan the night before had worked. That was why Hattie jumped in with the announcement that they were all moving into Casa Memphis in town for a while while they were still at the table. Sarah tried to say that they didn't need to do that, but Andre shushed her "No, my dear Elana, all that matters for the now is that you keep your strength up, and you cannot do that with a houseful of guests. We will see you, but it will be better if we stay with Johnny and Mei in town, we can see this wild west town of your's and spend time with Jeanne, it will be grand."

Sarah looked dubious, but she agreed as what he said made sense and she was too tired to argue. She settled back, holding Chuck's hand, and they talked about how they were going to handle this, deciding that two of the landaus and a wagon for their luggage and supplies should be enough for the ones who weren't riding. Anna would be going in with them to help look after things at Casa Memphis (under Bolonia and Adele's tutelage, she had become quite a good cook).

John asked Chuck to help to harness up the teams, which they all knew was John's subtle way of saying 'get out here because I want to talk to you', and sure enough, as soon as they were in the roundhouse, he pointed up at the atmotic ship frames and said. "You're not going to touch that, or do anything else of the like again until after the babies are born, are you?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, I'm thinking straight again and I'll stay with Sarah, where I should have been all along. Thank you for that John. I needed it, obviously."

John nodded and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "Don't mention it, you've helped me when I've needed it, too, that's what friends are for."

He pointed in the direction of the house. "But keep your head in the game from now on, _she's_ all that matters, stay by her side, look after her and give her whatever she needs."

Chuck nodded again, and with that John saddled Demonio and Beulah and they headed back to the house, as the troopers who were going back into town with them were already harnessing the mules for the landaus and wagon and needed no help.

As they were walking back to the house, John pointed to the work that was going on near the engineering building and asked if he was working on that as well.

Chuck shook his head. "No, that's mainly Scottie and Joseph's project at the moment. When they got back Joseph admitted that he'd been only focussing on making the Belle the best sea ship she could be when he talked us into making her bigger than was really convenient for here. She's too big to be going through the canal all the time because she keeps touching the sides unless you go dead slow, so we drew up the plans for another boat half the size of the Belle that we're going to call the Elana. She'll be seventy eight feet long with a beam of thirteen feet and will have two boilers, one turbine and gearboxes to drive the two shafts independently. They brought all the equipment they created to build aluminium ships with them when they moved over here, and the slipway that Joshua built will the perfect place to build it. They had to make up more cradles to do the job, but we've got a storehouse full of the two foot wheelsets and axle mounts that the cradles need, and Joshua and Joseph have pointed out that we can use them to pull the Belle up to work on her as well."

John shook his head. "But you're not working on this… Elana?"

Chuck shook his head. "Not at this point, and I won't be until after the babies are born."

John nodded and said. "Good…. So where did you come up with the idea for this…. atmotic ship?"

Chuck quickly looked around, and when he'd confirmed that they were out of earshot of anyone else he said. "The Daemon's host saw it at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in Fifty Four, and again at the Paris Exposition in Fifty Five. The original idea belonged to William Bland, a doctor over in Sydney" (pointing out over the Pacific) "he lodged the patents in Fifty One, but the design was much improved by the time he presented it at the Exhibition in Fifty Four. There were still a fair few technical issues to be overcome, but the concept has considerable merit, more so than the other airship design that I've seen have."

John snorted. "One thing that we can always rely on with you Chuck, life will always be interesting."

That got the first smile he'd seen from Chuck since they'd returned, which he took as a good sign.

Kathleen was worried that they'd be leaving them without enough transport at the hacienda, so Hattie laughed and took her by the hand to lead her into the roundhouse. The night before, the lights had only lit Chuck's work area, so she hadn't seen anything of the rest of the roundhouse. When she looked in the daylight though, she could see a landau, couple of barouches, their two covered wagons, two buckboards, a couple of three seat surreys, and a few lightweight gigs in the carriage house area of the roundhouse. There were also some rather strange looking carriages off to one side, three landaus, two park phaetons and three small omnibuses, plus two drays.

Looking around at this, Kathleen laughed as well, conceding that they apparently had no shortage of conveyances after all, but she asked about the strange looking carriages and drays.

"They're Chuck and Scottie's creations, a variation of steam carriages and wagons, we could take them but none of us know how to drive them. There are a couple of them at Casa Memphis anyway."

Kathleen nodded at that, remembering the steam carriages and omnibus they had in New York.

Once the luggage and supplies were loaded, there was a flurry of hugs, and the carriages trundled off towards town, with the wagon following.

When they were out of sight, Chuck took Sarah back inside to have a rest, she was better than she'd been, but the more rest she got, the better she'd be.

They were right, as with most of the group in town, and Chuck sticking by her side, Sarah picked up quite a bit. Of course, when she did, she insisted on diving back into the work that had been piling up when she was poorly, but as this didn't seem to be harming her Chuck and the others went along with it.

 **A/N: Yes, I know that El Barco just means 'boat', but that's what they told him, and the others didn't want to embarrass him by pointing that out. ;^)**

 **NB: For those who enjoy meaningless trivia, the reason the ferry has two engine and rudder setups is that while it is possible to reverse the rotation of a steam engine, rudders don't work as well on the inlet rather than the outlet side of the propeller either, so it works better to have an engine with the propeller shaft directly connected to it and rudder set up to drive it in each direction.**


	3. The Next Generation

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

In town, John and the others were getting settled into Casa Memphis and taking over its operations. Hank and Jerry had been trading off running things in town while he'd been away and most of the troopers based in there had been rotating between Casa Memphis and the hacienda as well. The only one who was permanently based in town though was Weed.

Their guests were delighted to hear the story of how young Trooper Michael Johnson had come to be known as Weed. Michael was a skinny little kid of twelve or thirteen who'd never fired a gun when he joined the Cavalry at the start of the war. He only got in because he was so good with horses, and he was too small to fire the Sharps carbines without almost being thrown on his butt (it didn't help that some of the older troopers thought it was funny to be giving him the heavy _rifle_ loads, rather than the lighter carbine loads, to fire for a laugh), but over the space of six months or so he'd suddenly shot up like a weed and filled out a little, so he was known as Weed from then on!

Weed was a maestro with the telegraph, and he could handle the machinery of derrick's vapor engine and winches and the vapor carriages and drays better than any of them but Chuck or Scottie, so they asked him if he'd stay in at Casa Memphis to handle the technical matters there and he'd readily agreed. He was rather busy with his normal duties though, so he was glad to see Anna come in to cook for all the extra people they had at the house now.

One of the first visits for their guests was to the Two Widows, as Andre and Henri were anxious to see Jeanne, and Kathleen and Alex went along to meet the other people in the 'family' there. When they tasted Bolonia's cooking though, Kathleen and Alex looked at each other with mischievous little smiles. Ellie, Adele and now Bolonia, they were dying to see how Lou would take to finding out that this group had _three_ other cooks who could challenge her in the kitchen when they moved here.

Even though she and Johnny had agreed not to raise the matter with Alex just yet, when he, Mei and Andre had left that time, Alex had been so upset that Kathleen had told her about what they'd been discussing to cheer her up. It was no surprise that Alex had excitedly embraced the idea, and it was all Kathleen could do to get her to accept that this wouldn't be happening any time soon, she had to finish her education first!

They enjoyed looking around Los Angeles (with Johnny and an escort of troopers to ensure their safety of course), and they went out to the hacienda every day or two to see Sarah and the others. Sarah kept getting bigger, but they were glad to see that she didn't look so drained now, so all of them moving into town to stay at Casa Memphis was obviously doing her good.

* * *

One thing that Kathleen had wanted to do while they were there though was look at the potential house market in Los Angeles. While it would be at least another year or two before Alex finished school and they could think of moving, she didn't want to pass up the chance to look when they were there in Los Angeles. The problem with that was that there were no houses, or even land, that were potentially on the market that appealed to her at all!

Kathleen was getting frustrated, so much so that she started drinking more than usual, and she didn't handle her drink well. _Nothing_ about this trip was going the way they'd planned, they'd come out to see Sarah, but they'd only added to her stress when she couldn't afford it with the babies. Then they'd moved into town with Johnny and the others, but obviously they were interfering with Johnny and Mei settling down together by being there too. Now they couldn't even find a place for them to move to after Alex finished school! It was wonderful to see them all, but this trip was just one disaster after another!

Mei had watched Kathleen getting morosely drunk, but when she went to refill her glass yet again, Mei intercepted her and took the glass off her, taking her by the hand to lead her downstairs and out onto the rear terrace. Directing her to sit, she asked. "What's wrong Kathleen?"

Kathleen burst into tears, crying out "We shouldn't be here!" and then it all came pouring out. May held her while she cried, and when she'd settled down, stood and pulled her to her feet, leading her over to the edge of the paddock that made up nearly half of the block. Turning to Kathleen, she asked. "What about this?"

Kathleen looked at the paddock, and then back at her in confusion. "What do you mean Mei?"

"You've said that you hadn't seen one house or block of land that you'd want to live in, what about _this_ block?" she waved to the paddock "Do you think you and Alex could be happy living here?"

"What are you saying Mei? We can't take half of the land here!"

"Why not? We're not using this for anything other than a paddock for the mules, we only bought this much land to let us build a dock that was long enough to take ships we may want to bring in here across it. As you can see, Casa Memphis doesn't use even half of the street frontage, so there's plenty of room to build another house here, unless it's too close to us for you?"

Kathleen didn't know what to say and she looked away as she tried to formulate a response, so she didn't see Mei look up at the house, to where she knew that John would be watching them, and motion for him to come down. By the time Kathleen had finally gathered herself enough to face Mei again, she was looking back at her.

"Of course it's not too close for us! It would be wonderful for Alex to be close enough to be able to see her father when she wanted to. Having us living right in your laps though, we'd be getting in your way, interfering with you two developing your relationship, and I don't want to do that!"

John had walked up behind her as she was saying that it would be wonderful for Alex to be close enough to see him when she wanted, so he got the gist of what she was saying, and he responded when she finished talking, making her jump.

"If we haven't managed to get our relationship worked out by the time you move out here, having you living next door won't make a difference Kath."

She gave Mei an accusing glare for not warning her that he was behind her before turning to face him. "Are you really trying to say that it wouldn't bother the two of you at all to have me, your _ex_ , living right next door to you?"

Mei stretched up to give John a quick kiss on the lips as he stepped up to her and then answered her. "Do you think that I would have suggested it if I didn't want you to take me up on the suggestion Kathleen?"

Looking at John, she added. "Kathleen has been blaming herself for Sarah's health problems and our not having sorted out our issues and settled down together yet, and was getting upset that they hadn't been able to find anything remotely promising as a place to live when they move here, so I suggested that they could build and live here." (She waved to the other half of the land.)

John looked over at the paddock area and then looked back at Kathleen. "Well I think that that's a wonderful idea, don't you like it here?"

Kathleen gave Johnny the benefit of her glare this time. "I didn't say that Johnny! It's just, I'm already in the way here, if we're living right here I'll be in the way even more! I've done nothing but cause trouble since I got here!"

Mei gave John a 'See?' look and he shook his head. "How have you caused trouble Kath? Need I remind you that _you_ were the one who kicked off the things that helped get Chuck straightened out, so he's helping Sarah the way she needs him to now, and the others are saying that this is the best she's been in weeks."

"As for Mei and I, that's _our_ issues, it's got nothing to do with you at all. That was why Sarah and Chuck asked us to move in here to take over before we even talked about coming to get you. We're working though our issues and I'm sure they'll all be behind us well before you move over."

Mei shared a look with John and then turned to face Kathleen. "A large part of our problems there are mine Kathleen, you see I was held captive by one of the Tongs in San Francisco and raped for three days before I managed to escape. I am still having considerable trouble getting past that but John is helping me, and I am sure that in time with his help I will overcome it."

Kathleen stared at her in horror at what she had endured, while John embraced her, kissing her on top of her head. Then he looked up at Kathleen.

"As far as you and Alex living here Kath…." (waving at the paddock) "I'd love it, _we'd_ love it! I've missed out on too much of Alex's life already, so it would be wonderful to be able to be right here for her. So, unless there's something that you don't like about the idea, for your own sake, we'd love it if you'd agree, so we can start organising to get the house built."

Kathleen looked at Mei with tears in her eyes and Mei nodded with a smile, which prompted her to say "Yes?" hesitantly. Mei's smile widened and she stepped forward to embrace her.

When she stepped back, John stepped in to hug Kathleen as well, asking. "So, any thoughts on what sort of house you'd like?"

Kathleen turned to look up at Casa Memphis. "Actually, I'm finding that I like your house here a lot more than the traditional houses back east like the one you bought for us in Farmington, I believe that we'd be very comfortable in one like it. But…. surely we can't just decide this without getting agreement from Chuck and Sarah and the others first can we?"

Mei shared a look with John and then responded. "I can assure you that they'll agree without question, but would you be more comfortable if we asked them now?"

That earned her a confused look from Kathleen, so she pointed up at the house "Have you forgotten that we have a telegraph station here, and they also have one at the hacienda? We can go and ask them right now, even though I know what their answer will be."

Kathleen shook her head. "Well, truth be told... Yes, I _had_ forgotten that you could do that, the idea that people can just wire each other whenever they feel like it from their homes, to be able to communicate like that, it just doesn't seem to fit into the world that I live in."

Mei smiled. "Well, you'll have time to get used to it when you move out here, so shall we?"

Kathleen looked more confident this time as she nodded, saying. "Yes, please!"

They went up to the office where they had the telegraph station and John wrote out the message, passing it to Mei and Kathleen to get their agreement that it covered what they wanted to ask before passing it to Weed to send.

The response came back within ten minutes. 'When is Kathleen going to accept that she and Alex are family? Yes! We are all in agreement here, we love the idea of having them living right here in the bosom of the family where they belong. Organise construction of the house once you have Kathleen's requirements. Sarah and Chuck.'

When Weed took down the message and handed it to him, John smiled and handed it to Kathleen, asking. "Does this answer your questions?"

Kathleen read the message and nodded with tears in her eyes, too moved to speak. Mei took her in her arms until she'd composed herself, and then they went looking for Alex.

Alex was confused when her mother asked whether she liked it here? "What do you mean Mama? Of course I like being here and seeing Papa, Auntie Mei, Auntie Sarah, Uncle Chuck and everyone else….."

She suddenly broke off and started crying. "You're not saying that we have to go back, are you Mama? No! Please Mama! You said that we could be here when Auntie Sarah has her babies!"

Kathleen looked at Mei, in a panic and pleading for help with her eyes as she tried to understand how that had gone so wrong.

Mei squeezed her hand and then turned to hug Alex. "Alex… Alex... Alex shush! No-one is saying that you have to go back! What your mother is asking is… You know about the plan for you and your mother, and everyone else back at the house in Farmington to move over here after you've finished your education back east?"

Alex nodded tearfully.

"Well what your mother is trying to ask you is whether you think you would be happy living close by in this part of Los Angeles, and in a house like this one, instead of something like the house back in Farmington?"

Alex was still sniffling but nodded as she said. "I'd like that, your and Papa's house is bright and cheery Auntie Mei, and it's nice up here on the hill too. It's much nicer here than down near where Auntie Jane and Auntie Bolonia have their cafe, or over where those other big houses are."

Mei shared a look with Kathleen, who was looking hopeful, and continued. "So you'd be happy, living up here in a house like this?"

Alex just nodded at that.

Kathleen had a relieved smile on her face now and she stood, holding her arms out to Alex. Alex stood and went to her, and after they'd hugged Kathleen took her hand, leading her downstairs and across the courtyard to the edge of the paddock.

Her mother pointed to the paddock and asked. "So you'd be happy, living right there in a house just like your Papa's then Sweetie?"

Alex was confused and hesitant. "Yes, Mama?"

Kathleen laughed and hugged her again. "Well that's good, because that's just where we're going to be living!"

Alex was looking from her mother to her father, totally confused. John stepped forward to take her by the hand and led her into the paddock. Standing in the middle of the paddock, he told her. "What your mother means Alex is that we're going to build a house just like mine right here, and this is where you will be moving to after you've finished at Miss Porter's, and hopefully university."

She stared at him and asked hopefully. "Really?

He nodded with a smile. "Really!"

She turned to beam at her mother, but Kathleen pointed at Mei. "It was your Auntie Mei's idea!"

Tears forgotten now, Alex bolted across the paddock and all but knocked Mei off her feet when she threw herself on her to hug her, repeating ecstatically. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Mei hugged her back and kissed her forehead, smiling as she whispered. "You're most welcome little one."

Kathleen was in happy tears again at the sight of Alex and Mei together like that, and John joined her in happily taking in the scene in front of them.

* * *

Ellie had been almost spot on with her prediction of when the babies would arrive, because two weeks after John and Mei had returned with the others, the telegraph woke Weed in the middle of the night, and he in turn woke everyone else.

Luckily, it was a full moon that night, so they had that to light their way on their dash out to the hacienda. John, Mei, Hattie and Tom rode with Weed and three of the troopers, while another four troopers were handling the two landaus that were carrying Kathleen, Alex, Andre, Henri, Anna, Jane and Bolonia.

Nothing had happened by the time that they arrived, but that was as expected, as first births generally took longer. Her Uncle John was the only man allowed in to see Sarah, and when he came out, he reported that she was looking frightened but OK, and Chuck was looking absolutely terrified, but nothing could make him let go of Sarah's hand, even if she'd been about to let go of his.

Adele, Hattie, Jane, Mei and Zondra were going in and out over the next nine and a half hours, and when they did come out, they reported that even though Chuck looked like he was about to explode from nerves, he was doing a good job of keeping Sarah calm and comforted.

Helen (as she was soon to be named) was born first, after nearly eleven hours of labour, Clytemnestra came about ten minutes later, then Castor fifteen minutes after that, and finally Pollux ten minutes after him. After so many, and the afterbirth, Ellie was still waiting, half expecting another one to come out, but it was 'just' the four babies.

The births were very hard on Sarah for a number of reasons, but the fact that it was her first experience of childbirth was probably the least of it. Having _FOUR_ babies drained her energies to dangerously low levels, and for some reason the weaker she became, the more vigorous the babies appeared to become. On top of that, the babies weren't little, such as twins often were, they were all big and hearty babes who were quite well developed, so birthing the four of them together like that strained her greatly.

It appeared to Ellie and the other women that the connection to Chuck was the only thing that sustained Sarah through her ordeal, and as soon as she'd expelled the afterbirth, seven minutes after Pollux's birth, she passed out. Chuck fell apart at that point, but he kept clutching her hand tightly, begging her to come back to him.

Chuck's wail of anguish as Sarah passed out like that broke Ellie out of her anxious waiting for another baby to come, and she leapt to check on Sarah's vital signs. It took quite a bit to convince Chuck that she was alive and would recover, and he only truly believed it when she opened her eyes and spoke to him herself.

After he'd kissed her and held her up to see their babies, Sarah weakly said that she needed to rest and closed her eyes, but this time she'd obviously lapsed into an exhausted sleep than suddenly collapsing unconscious and looking dead so he didn't fall apart again, he just gently kissed her on the forehead and murmured endearments into her hair as he held her.

* * *

While he held Sarah's hand as she slept, Chuck looked at their babies, and they looked back at him. According to all the memories that he'd acquired via the Daemon, their babies were far more aware of their surroundings than other newborns, and they somehow seemed to recognise him as their father, he couldn't fathom how this was happening.

Looking into two pairs of blue, and two pairs of brown eyes though, Chuck realised that both he and Sarah had gotten just what they'd said they wanted. Helen was a blue eyed, blonde little angel who he was sure would look just like her mother, just what he'd dreamed of, while Castor had brown hair and eyes and would probably be the spitting image of him when he grew up, which is what Sarah had said she wanted. Of course, they also had Pollux, a beautiful boy with Sarah's blonde hair and blue eyes, and Clytemnestra, with Chuck's brown hair and eyes, she'd most likely grow into a beauty who took after Ellie.

As he was thinking that the most important thing was that they were obviously all healthy with plenty of energy, he looked at their faces again and suddenly knew what their names would be, Helen, Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri and their sisters. As he said their names, it was almost as if they understood that he was talking about them and accepted their names, the way that they were looking at him.

Chuck spent the next hour or so, quietly talking to their children and holding Sarah's hand as she slept, and he was quite happy to see her colour returning as she did so. When she did wake, she was quite perky, considering the ordeal that she'd just gone through, and demanded to see their babies straight away.

Chuck brought the girls over first, telling her the names he'd given them as he handed them to her. While she was checking over her daughters with delight, he brought the boys over. When she was ready, he exchanged Pollux for Helen and Castor for Clytemnestra, telling her the boys' names as he did so.

After she'd held and looked over all of her children and returned them to Chuck to lay them back in their crib, she laid back, worn out but happy, all of their children were beautiful and healthy, they couldn't ask for more than that.

Just as Chuck returned to take her hand and kiss her, Clytemnestra started making noises, and they both instinctively knew that she was hungry, so Chuck went to pick her up and bring her to her mother.

Though she was hungry, she didn't take long to drink her fill, and looking down at her daughter as she lay in her arms looking back at her with her beautiful brown eyes, something occurred to Sarah.

"Chuck, why did you give our children the names that you did?"

"Don't you like them? If you don't, we can change them, they won't know."

"I'm not too sure about that, but you haven't answered my question!"

Chuck shrugged. "Well, when I saw how beautiful Helen and Pollux were, the names just came to me."

"Are you saying that Castor and Clytemnestra aren't beautiful?"

"No, of course not! All our children are beautiful… I... I just saw Helen and Pollux first."

"So it had nothing to do with the fact that Helen and Pollux have my blonde hair and blue eyes, but Castor and Clytemnestra have your hair and eyes?"

"Nooooooooo?"

"Did you really think that you were the only one who remembered the legends of the Dioscuri? You do remember that my Daemon was there, too, don't you?"

"No, I mean yes, I mean, no, I didn't think that, and yes, I remember that, of course!"

"And yet you didn't believe that I'd pick up on the fact that you've named our children who look more like me after the divine ones, and the ones who look more like you after the mortals?"

"What? Sarah, you know I wouldn't do.…. OK, yes. Our children who look like you are more beautiful to me, because they take after the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world."

Sarah laughed and reached for him with a smile. "Idiot. Well, for your information I think Castor and Clytemnestra are more beautiful because they take after their gorgeous father. But, I really don't think that you've been fair to our daughter Clytemnestra, saddling her with that name, it's much longer and harder to say than the others'."

Chuck sat on the side of the bed and kissed her. "Well we can always shorten it, 'Clytem'? No, 'Nestra'? That's better, oh, I've got it, 'Nessie'!"

Sarah smiled down at their daughter in her arms. "Nessie, yes, I like that!"

Nessie gurgled happily and smiled up at her mother "and I think she does too."

Chuck smiled at his daughter, leaning in to gently kiss her on the head.

He looked at the others, laying in their crib, and his expression turned solemn, it was truly a miracle that all four of them, and Sarah, had come through the births OK, he'd been terrified that he was going to lose Sarah, because she'd gotten so weak as she went through the ordeal of the multiple births.

Once they were sure that they would all be OK though, the Dioscuri had come to mind, and it seemed so much like a sign, two boys, two girls, and mixed, that he'd given them the names while Sarah was resting after the births. He had been serious in what he'd said to her, if she didn't like the names he would change them, but she didn't seem to mind, and neither did Nessie.

By this time, Nessie had closed her eyes, and Sarah was struggling to keep her's open, so Chuck took Nessie off her and returned her to the crib, coming back to kiss Sarah and tuck her in, so that she drifted off to sleep with a contented smile on her face.

Soon after that, Ellie looked in and asked in a whisper if the others could come in and see the babies, and once he'd confirmed that Sarah and the babies were all sound asleep and unlikely to wake, Chuck nodded.

Ellie brought the rest of the core group, Adele, Andy, John, Mei, Hattie, Tom, Zondra, Jane, Andre, Henri, Kathleen, Alex, Hank, Jerry, Weed, Bill, Ben, Bolonia and Anna in, two at a time, and Chuck whispered the babies names to them from where he sat at Sarah's side, holding her hand (telling them 'Nessie' rather than 'Clytemnestra').

* * *

Over the next day, they discovered their next problem, Sarah couldn't make enough milk to feed all four of their babies if they were hungry at the same time, so she felt like a failure and was terrified that she would be putting her babies' health and lives in danger. However Adele found that even though her's had only been a phantom pregnancy, she could produce milk and Helen and then the other babies would feed from her. What was more of a shock was that she had actually felt this acceptance from Helen.

They did have other girls who were willing to be wet nurses, as when they returned from New Orleans they'd discovered that thirteen of the Chinese girls from San Francisco were pregnant, as well as the three from Los Angeles. The girls had all chosen to separate their babies from the manner that they were conceived, and kept them. Their babies were all born before the group had returned to California in the Memphis Belle. They had lost two of the babies, and one of the girls, in childbirth, but the other fourteen babies were healthy and growing well, and one of the girls who'd lost her baby was raising the baby of the girl that they'd lost.

While Sarah and Chuck were grateful for their offer, the only one other than Sarah that their babies would accept was Adele. It was almost as if their babies had all agreed on this, but they also seemed to sense when Sarah began to feel discomfort from the fullness of her breasts, because one or more of the babies would want to feed, and Adele produced less milk as the babies needed her to feed less.

When their children could talk, they confirmed the impression that Adele and their parents had had at the time. Helen had indeed sensed Sarah's distress and concern, and also Chuck and 'Mama Del's (as they called her) concern for both her and her mother, and she could see the what they wanted her to do, for her sake and Sarah's, so she'd accepted Adele's breast and started feeding. Her brothers and sister had shared this experience with her, so they had done as their mother wished when they were offered Adele in her place to spare her further distress.

As for the more convenient feedings, just as Sarah and Chuck could sense what their children wanted, they could sense what their parents wanted, so when Sarah was ready to give milk, they let her know that they were hungry.

At the time, Chuck and Sarah were confused about this, but all that they really cared about was that their babies had settled down, were feeding properly, and were happy, healthy and content. The others in the group who had raised babies all talked about the fact that they'd never seen babies this happy or content, though. They hardly ever cried, and they'd never seen any of them in a crying fit (only the close 'family' knew about the way that the babies communicated with their parents and each other, as it wasn't really something that they could explain to other folk).

 **A/N: OK, some may remember that Michael Johnson was actually _Skip_ from the Buymore's name in the series, but as far as I can see, Skip wasn't used in the mid-1800s and I can't find a way to work it into the storyline. Weed though, that fits, especially if you picture Skip (tall, skinny, red afro) as the character. Aside from that, I haven't been able to get 'Bill and Ben, Flower Pot Men' (from the British children's show I saw as a kid) out of my head since I used those two names together, and they had a good friend called Weed. ;^)**


	4. Baby Boom

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

In the morning, Chuck, Sarah and the babies went for what had become their customary morning stroll over the month since the babies were born, their babies sharing the baby carriage that had been made for four of them. The baby carriage had a low, bowl shaped padded basket that they could easily see out of, riding on a suspended undercarriage, which in turn rode on wheels wrapped in India-rubber to further smooth the ride. Chuck pushed the carriage and Sarah walked beside it, as was their want.

As usual, they took a turn around the lake on their stroll. The Memphis Belle and a few small row boats were tied up alongside the dock that stretched most of the way along the hacienda side of the square artificial lake and there was a good deal of laughter as Sarah pointed to the Belle and the developing shape of the Elana on the slipway, and as usual told their children that these were their father's other children, so they should probably be regarded as family too. Adele, Ellie and Andy, Hattie and Tom, John and Mei and Zondra and Ben were accompanying them, and they were taking great delight in Chuck's expression of mock outrage at what Sarah was saying.

Sarah turned to Ellie to share a laugh with her sister-in-law, and caught her rubbing her belly as she smiled at Chuck's antics. Without thinking, she blurted out "Ellie, are you?…"

Ellie smiled happily and nodded. "I've only been certain in the last week or so, but yes!"

Sarah gave a happy cry and moved to hug and kiss her, and Andy, the others following suit after that.

When she'd stepped back to make way for the others, Sarah knelt beside the baby carriage and addressed her children again. "Did you hear that? You'll be having a cousin soon, isn't that exciting?"

The babies gurgled happily and kicked, and projected their excitement at the news. Chuck picked this up and turned to smile happily at his children.

Ellie looked a question at him when he did this, and he nodded at the baby carriage. "Your nieces and nephews are excited to hear that they'll have a cousin, or cousins, soon."

Ellie smiled fondly at her nieces and nephews, then blanched as she realised what Chuck had said. Turning to Andy, she hissed. "If I have anywhere near as many as Sarah had, I may well strangle you in your sleep for doing this to me!"

Chuck chortled as he got himself out of range, and Andy gave him a look of reproach. The others looked at them questioningly, but Chuck shook his head with a laugh, and Andy in resignation.

When Sarah looked at Chuck, she picked up the image of Ellie with multiple babies (the links they had with their babies had helped them open a direct link between the two of them), and she couldn't help chuckling as well. This time it was her who was shot a look of reproach by Ellie, and she went to hug her in commiseration.

Ellie was embarrassed about this, so to get the attention off herself, she asked Hattie when she was going to share her news. The look of reproach came back to Ellie then, as Hattie hadn't wanted to share this yet, but she nodded in resignation and said that she'd been waiting until she was sure that her pregnancy would proceed before she said anything but yes, she was with child as well. This prompted another round of congratulations for her and Tom.

That prompted Sarah to share a look with Adele, and at Adele's nod she put her arm around her and spoke up. "While we're sharing baby news, Adele's having a baby too, and yes, it's Chuck's."

There were a few surprised looks at that, because while it was commonly known that Adele shared a bed with them most nights, most of them hadn't expected this, but Sarah snapped at them.

"Stop that! You know about Adele's nightmares..." A few of them nodded at that, as they'd all heard her screams in the night. "Well as some of you know, Adele was being raped and beaten and worse by her master all the time for ten or eleven years from when she was nine or ten until she finally managed to run away just after the war, but after that she was still being raped and beaten by all the men she couldn't get away from up until she met us. That was why I convinced her and Chuck to try and see whether a good experience could help drive the demons away when she was comfortable with the idea. It worked, and we all agreed that Chuck would continue doing it when Adele needed it."

She stopped and gave Adele a squeeze and a reassuring smile before continuing.

"We'd thought that Adele couldn't have babies because of what had been done to her as a girl, and the phantom pregnancy she had when I was pregnant seemed to confirm that, but last week she started showing the signs again, and this time she _is_ pregnant, so our babies are going to have a little brother or sister. Chuck can't legally take another wife, but plaçage arrangements are still legally accepted around the country, so we'll be using formal plaçage contracts to establish Adele and her children's place in the Bartowski and Barton families. _We're_ all happy about this, so if anyone isn't they can keep their opinions to themselves!"

As soon as Sarah stopped speaking, Ellie led the charge to hug and congratulate Adele.

* * *

By the time they returned from their stroll, Tom's parents and Scottie and Annella had come up from their quarters and Joshua, Kathleen, Alex, Andre and Henri had come down from their rooms. Adele asked what everyone wanted for breakfast and when she had the list she, Ellie and John headed to the kitchen to make the breakfasts.

As they were relaxing over breakfast, John brought up the fact that, now that the babies were settled in, it was time that Alex got back to school, as she'd already missed two months of it. Alex tried to argue, but one look at her mother told her that she was in total agreement, as were the other faces around the table.

Andre nodded "Oui, it has been wonderful being here, with our little Elana and her babies and all of you, but it is time that I got back to my life as well."

Henri also nodded "Oui, me as well, though perhaps it is time for me to return to New Orleans at last."

Sarah piped up then. "Now that the babies are settled, we really should take them to see Uncle Sam and Aunt Julia and Nellie, as I know that they've been hurt that we have haven't taken them over there to see them yet."

Ellie nodded at that. "And we should tell Andy's parents, or at least his mother, our news as well."

The others turned to look at Ellie, and she blushed "I've just confirmed that I am pregnant, so we'll be having a baby too soon."

The others rushed to congratulate her and Andy at that, but she pointedly looked at Hattie and Adele, who glared at her, but admitted that they were pregnant as well, prompting a new flood of congratulations (though the glances at Adele showed that Sarah would have to have a quiet word to some of them to head off any potentially upsetting questions).

When things had settled down again, John summed up the requirements for this trip, they'd need to book one of the big Pullman Hotel cars straight away, so that it would be in San Francisco when they arrived, they'd take only the necessities for this trip as they'd just be going out and back, but they would be taking sixteen of the men to guard the group.

The Memphis Belle would take them to San Francisco for the start of their train ride. They'd drop off Andre and Henri as they passed through Illinois, and then go straight through to Connecticut, to get Alex started back at school and so Andy and Ellie could go talk to his family.

He looked at Hattie and added that they'd also have to find the best way to get her, Tom and an escort to New York, so that Hattie could see her mother? Hattie nodded gratefully and he went on, "And also to Boston to see your Aunt?"

Again Hattie nodded with a smile, wishing that Johnny would let his caring and considerate side show more, instead of hiding it behind his pretence of being gruff.

After that, they'd head back to Washington for a few days with (darting a look at the others) Uncle Sam and the family, then come home.

Tom spoke up at this point, turning to Hattie. "If we're going to see both your Aunt Carina and your mother, perhaps it would be best to go through to Boston first, and then stop off to see your mother while the others go on to Washington?"

Hattie considered that for a moment and nodded. "Yes, that makes more sense, it will also give us time to get word to Mama so that we can arrange to see her."

When the discussions were finished, John looked around, and with everyone's agreement on the core plan, headed off to the office to send the wires to book the Hotel car etc.

As he headed off, Chuck looked at Sarah and quietly said. "You know that he's going to want me back at work once he's confirmed that you and the babies are OK, don't you?"

Sarah nodded, but said. "We! This family is staying together, so if you have to go back to work, we're all going! Our children and I aren't going to be separated from you!"

Chuck went to argue, but he knew that look on her face, so he capitulated. He did say "Uncle Sam won't like that idea", but the look that that earned him was enough to make him shut up.

With the plan agreed, they all started getting what they'd need for this trip together. Kathleen and Alex were taken into Los Angeles to say goodbye to Jane, Bolonia, Al, Mike and Jeff until their next visit, or they moved to Los Angeles. They did this straight away to ensure that they didn't leave without the chance to do so.

Several of the women at the hacienda fell to, making up a big enough supply of diapers to ensure that they would not run out before they reached Connecticut, and with four babies for over a week, that added up to a _lot_ of diapers. They were also taking along a supply of barrels to store the soiled diapers in until they could wash them. Obviously, the logistics for travelling with babies were more complicated than they'd first thought.

They received a notification from Tolbert, Ives and Jager that afternoon to say that the Hotel car would be ready in Oakland within twenty four hours, so they were on their way first thing the next morning, planning on timing their arrival to match the train's.

When they reached Oakland, the train wasn't ready to leave yet, but it was there, so most of their gear was loaded into the baggage car with a trooper guarding it, while the rest was piled up with troopers watching over it as they waited for their Hotel car to be ready.

Chuck and Sarah were the only ones who really had any work to do on this trip, aside from the trooper's guard duty in the baggage car, as they were still going through the dispatches and writing up their findings and recollections. They were also picking up the dispatches that had been in transit along the way, as telegrams had been sent down the line, ordering the military couriers carrying them to get off the trains they were on at agreed stops, to deliver the dispatches to the team when their train came through.

The girls (and John) were helping look after the babies while Sarah and Chuck were working, but there was little need for that as the babies were happiest when they were near their parents. They were quite content to lay on the seats beside their parents where they could see them, getting a touch or a smile when they had a chance or better yet, lay in the crook of their arm as they worked.

As they drew closer to St Louis, Andre and Henri started saying their goodbyes, to ensure that they didn't miss anyone. Chuck took the opportunity to ask Andre if he could ensure that Casa Memphis was ready for them, as there was a good chance that they'd be back soon. He also asked him what they had in the way of carriages and wagons at Casa Memphis (Andre had continued picking up carriages with undercarriage damage for them in New Orleans). Andre assured him that he would have Casa Memphis ready and that they had another half dozen carriages that needed repair and four wagons there. When Andre told him what repairs were needed, Chuck nodded, as they should have enough wheels and such in what they took off the first nine to make those carriages serviceable, and a lick of paint would have them looking fine.

Once Andre and Henri had left the train, they bypassed Washington to take the most direct route to Connecticut. Hattie, Tom and four troopers went on to Boston, while in Connecticut all but the four troopers who went with Andy and Ellie to see Andy's parents stayed at Coburn House.

* * *

Andy and Ellie didn't spend long at his parents, they just told them that they were going to be grandparents and left to rejoin the others at Coburn House because Andy's father hadn't changed much from how he was at their wedding and Andy didn't want either of them to be anywhere near him.

Andy's mother's love for her son was enough to override her fear of her husband's actions though, and she defied him to come to Farmington so she could spend time with Andy and get to know her daughter-in-law, and future mother of her grandchildren, better. While she was there, she also began to find out what an extraordinary family her son had become part of.

Andy was worried about his father taking this out on his mother, but Ellie wasn't, because she'd seen the fear in the man's eyes when Andy had told him that if he raised a hand to his mother, he'd answer to him! (His mother had tried to interject to stop them arguing at their wedding and his father had turned on her.) Andy wasn't really convinced when she said that his father was too afraid of him to take any of this out on his mother, but his mother had also seen a little of this and agreed with her when she said that, so he'd conceded the point gratefully.

Even if they hadn't wanted to wait long enough to ensure that Alex settled back into school at Miss Porter's properly, they were going to be there for at least a few days though, as they had a mountain of soiled diapers to rinse, soak, wash (at least two or three times to ensure that they were truly clean) and dry. The first day was pretty much taken up with the reunions with 'Auntie Lou', 'Uncle Albert' and Eliza for Kathleen and Alex as it was. This also gave Andy's mother her chance to spend time with him and Ellie.

Hattie and Tom (and their escort) spent a day with her Aunt Carina in Boston, and it was rather an eye opener for Tom to see how many men she turned away in that time to devote the day to her niece. He was beginning to see where the wild Carina Miller that she'd told him about had came from.

Hattie was glad to hear that, after they'd reconciled at her wedding, her mother and her Aunt had managed to renew the closeness of their youth. Aunt Carina was going down to New York regularly to spend time with her mother now, and she certainly wasn't afraid to face down Hattie's father to ensure that her mother got to do what she wanted. When she heard that, Hattie realised that this was her best opportunity to see her mother. Aunt Carina readily agreed to come to New York to take her mother out for a few excursions as she so often did, to give the two of them the chance to spend time together. Tom sent a telegram to Farmington to explain their change in plans, and this led to a trooper being sent rushing over with a big bundle of paperwork, contracts and such that needed to be taken into Tolbert, Ives and Jager to be actioned. Given that they would be staying in the apartments at Memphis House anyway, it was no trouble for Hattie to do it as Harry Quinn, though that would become an issue later on when she began to show.

While Hattie was in New York, arrayed in nice dresses as she dined in nice restaurants with Tom, her mother and her aunt, or in a suit as Harry in the law offices, working with Jim Goodman to formally establish Isabeau Adele Petit's plaçage contracts with Charles Irving Bartowski Barton and allocate other contracts and tasks to the other lawyers there, the rest of the girls, Chuck, John and a few of the troopers were in Farmington, up to their elbows in soiled diapers as they washed them all a few times at least to ensure that they were all truly clean. The strange part of that was that they didn't really mind, as the well-being of their little princes and princesses was all that mattered to them.

At first, Alex had trouble fitting back into the rigid environment of Miss Porter's, after nearly two months in the free and open environment that the 'family' had in California, but she understood that her parents, Auntie Mei and the rest of the family wanted her to have the best opportunities in life, and that required her to make the effort to bring that about, so she knuckled down and got to work.

They weren't about to tell her, but if Alex hadn't been able to get back into the regime to prepare herself for an education such as Ellie, Sarah and Hattie had carved out for themselves, John and Kathleen had been prepared for them to pack up in Farmington and move to California then and there. That wasn't what they wanted for her though, they wanted her to finish school so that she'd be able to earn herself a degree, preferably a serious qualification like Ellie, Sarah and Hattie's, not one of those mockeries that women were expected to accept were all that they deserved.

That was why they were so happy to see her settle down and get to work on the second day back at school, the 'determined' look on her face reflecting the iron wills of both of her parents. Within a day, she was full steam ahead in her efforts to make up for what she'd missed, and they knew that she'd manage. They did discuss getting her a tutor to help her catch up, but none of them were totally comfortable with the idea, as it would mean allowing an unknown person into their lives, and her's in particular.

Sarah was watching Alex poring over her books when she came up with the suggestion that they liked and decided to follow up on. This was to acquire a comprehensive library of reference works that Alex could go to when she was trying to find the information she was looking for. Alex had already proven that she'd readily search for the information she needed, so this way they would be providing her with the means to locate that information.

When they'd agreed and started putting their plans in motion, Kathleen added with a look of determination that almost mirrored her daughter's. "And I can use it as well! Growing up in Army camps may have prevented me from getting a good education when I was a girl, but if we have the materials here, there's nothing to stop me rectifying that situation now! Hopefully that will also help prevent me from embarrassing Alex with my ignorance when we're among educated people."

John put his arm around her. "Stop it Kath. You're not ignorant, you're one of the smartest women I know, and that puts you in very good company." (waving his hand to indicate Sarah, Ellie and Mei) "I'm sure you've never embarrassed Alex in that regard, but if you want to further your education, well I think that that's a wonderful idea!"

The others all supported John's statement, and they sat down to work out the sorts of things that this library should include, sending a telegram to Hattie (or rather, Harry) at the law firm to organise the purchase and delivery of these works, along with anything else she deemed worthwhile. (Sarah stopped to think and then sent a follow up telegram to Hattie, asking her to get two copies of everything, so that they could create a similar library at the hacienda.) Once that was done, they engaged workmen to come in and convert the large drawing room in Coburn House that they'd selected for the purpose into a library and reading room for them.

They ended up staying with Kathleen and Alex for four days, which gave them time to get everything clean, see Alex properly settled back into school, and for Ellie and Andy to have quality time with his mother. Before they left to head to Washington, Andy had one last visit with his father, to make the thinly veiled threat that he could be back there in less than a week from anywhere in the country if he heard anything that he didn't like. (His father didn't know that he'd been out of the country for months, but his mother had been impressed, and at times enchanted, by the photographs and stories that they'd brought back of their trip to Mexico, Puerto Rico, and down around South America.)

* * *

They had sent a telegram to Hattie about when they were leaving Farmington so she, Tom and their escort were waiting at the station for them when the train passed through New York.

In Washington, the first couple of days were devoted to everyone cooing over the babies, answering the questions about their names (their whole names, not just their given names, as they were Helen Emmeline Bartowski Barton, Clytemnestra Mary Bartowski Barton, Castor Stephen Bartowski Barton and Pollux John Bartowski Barton), and sharing and discussing the photographs of their travels. But then they started in on the formal debriefings regarding their findings in South America.

They argued over the diplomatic incident that was created by the suspected American involvement in the deaths of the Emperor's nephew and other prominent figures, and the sinking of Brazil's two biggest warships (even though they'd sent Uncle Sam their reports and photographs of what actually happened over a month before), and these arguments culminated in Chuck cracking the president's desk as he had unleashed the Daemon's power when he pounded his fist into it in a rage about what Sarah and the other girls had had to do and the danger they'd been put in because of the requirements imposed on them.

Chuck's rage frightened their children and they all began crying, which made Chuck change back into the caring father in a flash as he went to sooth them. Even as he had Helen and Nessie in his arms, comforting them though, Chuck looked the President in the eye and said. "No member of our team will _EVER_ submit to those things to obtain information for the government again! Do you understand me Mister President?"

The President bristled at being addressed like this, but Uncle Sam deflated as he agreed, apologising to the women for the position that the government's, or more to the point his, requirements had put them in.

When the babies were settled and they'd laid them down again, they could see Uncle Sam struggling with the next thing that he wanted to raise. Chuck looked at Sarah and sent her a silent 'I told you so!' message, and she looked grim as she sent back. 'I know!'

Sure enough, what Uncle Sam had to raise was the fact that he needed Chuck to take a team back to New Orleans to look into the situation again, as it was still volatile down there and it was picking up again, even with everything that they'd done to dismantle what was down there. Chuck opened his mouth to respond, but Sarah cut him off. "OK Uncle Sam, if you're determined that our team _have_ to be the ones who go down there to sort this out, we'll go."

President Grant hadn't gotten where he was by being a fool, and he understood quite well what she was saying. "No, Sarah, you and the babies can't go into a situation like that, it's much too dangerous!"

Sarah's response to him was almost word for word what she'd said to Chuck "No! This family is staying together! So if Chuck goes back to work, we all go, our children and I aren't going to be separated from him!"

Uncle Sam tried to argue, but accepted the futility of it and gave in, just as Chuck had. In his view the situation was so urgent that they had to get started down there immediately, but neither Chuck nor Sarah were in a compliant mood at that point, so they stuck to their guns (something which was always a literal possibility with that pair) and told him that they had to go back to California to set their affairs in order first, so they'd be in New Orleans in two to three weeks.

Given that they had somewhere they had to be, and Chuck and Sarah weren't in the best of moods, they sent telegrams off to get the railroad arrangements made immediately. They had one last dinner with Uncle Sam and Aunt Julia, and left in the morning.

On the way back to San Francisco, the team worked through the information that they'd been given about what had arisen in New Orleans since they pulled everything apart. There was apparently a new player calling the shots down there now, Theodore 'Ted' Roark, an industrialist who'd made his fortune up north before the war. He was nominally handling the situation for the Culper Ring, but in reality he was promoting his own financial interests over everything else.

What was effecting Chuck most in this, though, was the fact that the majority of the recollections that he had in regard to this man were his parents'. Ted Roark had supposedly been a friend of his father's, but he'd had stolen all of his ideas and designs and profited from them as his own, using his rich family's connections to support his claims of propriety and gain legal ownership of them.

Roark had used Stephen's creations to build his own vast fortune, while Stephen had been destroyed by the smear campaign Roark had started against him so he had gone to West Point to try and build a new life. His young wife had stayed with her family while Stephen was at West Point and in the Mexican-American War. After the war, the Bartowskis had struggled, barely scraping by, because Stephen had not been not allowed to use or sell his own creations when the 'law' said that they all belonged to Theodore Roark, and the slurs associated with the stories spread about him had hung over him until the day he died.

Stephen's memories of this time were full of shame, as he had regarded himself a coward for leaving his pregnant wife with her family and running off to West Point to start over, and then going off to the Mexican-American War to try and rebuild his reputation. He'd acquitted himself well in the war, but then he lost his leg and had to return and try and support his family as a one legged man with no prospects. Mary's father had to put up most of the money for them to get the house in New Orleans and start his engineering business. To Stephen it had all been totally shameful, and he'd often thought that Mary and their children would have been better off without him.

It wasn't only his father's memories of Roark that were haunting Chuck though, as his mother also had bad memories of him. Roark never had actually attacked her, but whenever Stephen hadn't been around, he had been very aggressive in making advances to her and she'd always been afraid of what he might do if he believed he could get away with attacking her. Mary had also felt shame over this, but her's related to not telling Stephen about what Roark did. She'd kept quiet about it because she felt certain that Stephen would have killed Roark if he'd known, and she and their children would have lost him if he did that.

* * *

As they headed out to sea, Chuck went to Joseph and asked him to push the pace as they had a lot to do and little time to do it, so any time taken on the passage back was lost time. This earned him a wolfish grin from Joseph, and after a quick re-calculation at the map table, he'd called down to the engine room to give him full speed (full, not flank). After a few minutes the log leapt up to 40 knots and held there, and Joseph took her a little further out to reduce the risk of her being seen at that speed.

They arrived at the hacienda in the mid afternoon (the train had pulled into Oakland in the early morning), having stopped just long enough at Casa Memphis to pick up Zondra and Ben on the way through (after reading of discoveries and experiments with electricity in scientific journals from around the world Chuck, Weed, Joshua, Joseph, Scottie and his three engineers had been trying to develop spark gap transmitters and crystal receivers that would work well enough together to create an effective wireless telegraph system with enough range to be usable, and the equipment they developed for that was now installed on the Belle, at the hacienda and at Casa Memphis so they no longer needed to stop at Casa Memphis to wire the hacienda to say that they were coming as they could send the signal from the Belle), and called a meeting as soon as they arrived to fill the others in on what was happening. The others could tell from Chuck's brittle mood that things had been said in Washington, but decided to leave that discussion for another time.

As they were about to embark on another journey, a delegation of the women and Chinese girls took over doing what they'd done in Farmington (rinse, soak, and wash the diapers several times), because there was too much to be done in planning the operation for them to do it themselves this time.

The changes to the structure of their group meant that they needed to formally change how things were going to be run while they were away. Both Joseph and Scottie had retained the Navy ranks that they'd had re-instated for the voyage around South America, which meant that both of them (as a United States Navy Commodore and Captain) had the authority to deal with the government and Army. They'd also had Joshua reinstated at the rank he left the Army as (when Chuck requested that he be reinstated as a Major, Uncle Sam told him that Joshua had been made a Brevet Lieutenant Colonel in recognition of his contribution and sacrifice when he was discharged from the Army, so they went with Lieutenant Colonel) while they were in Washington to support Joseph and Scottie, as he could match the rank of anyone in the Army in California.

Weed would be staying on at Casa Memphis as he played a key role in keeping their operations going there, and Joseph and Beatrice were also moving into Casa Memphis (with one of the vapor carriages, as Joseph wasn't going near horses), to handle whatever issues arose as Casa Memphis was where most of their dealings with the outside world were handled from, while Scottie and Joshua were in charge at the hacienda (Scottie wasn't as good with business or social matters as Joseph, or Joshua for that matter, and he had plenty of engineering work to do at the hacienda). Chuck took the necessary steps to formalise all of these arrangements before they left for New Orleans.

All up, these preparations took four days. Then they took the Memphis Belle back to San Francisco with the whole team, plus Tom, Andy and all but a dozen of the Troopers and Marines (Weed and eleven others were staying behind to fill necessary roles and organise the protection of the hacienda and its people). They were also taking half of the mules, two of Chuck's clockwork Gatling guns and 20,000 rounds of .46-80 in case they ran into sticky situations and some of the portable spark gap transmitters and crystal receivers that Weed had created (the uses for electricity had captured Weed's attention and he was leading the charge into electrical devices, much of his free time was spent tinkering with them) to see whether they would be as useful in their operations as they expected.

They saw the train with the Pullman Hotel cars and horse cars attached waiting at the railroad station when they pulled in to the dock at Oakland, so as soon as the Belle was tied up, the men requisitioned some hand carts and fell to, shuttling all of their gear and baggage and the mules up to the train. Much of the gear went into the baggage car, with just some of the personal baggage and baby things going into the Hotel cars. Everything was loaded onto the train quick smart, and they were ready to go before the train's scheduled departure time.

They were off on another mission for Uncle Sam, and while in many ways it seemed much like their old missions, this time Chuck and Sarah had their four babies with them, Ellie, Hattie and Adele were pregnant, and their prime adversary had almost destroyed Chuck and Ellie's family when he stole everything that their father had created, using political connections and the 'law' to legitimise his theft, and he had preyed on their mother as well.

Most of them were expecting trouble on this mission, as they felt it had all the makings of a Greek tragedy.


	5. Back In Harness

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

One of the things that they'd stipulated when they booked the Hotel cars was to cancel the cooks, as their personal chefs would be cooking for them. Adele and Ellie were the 'personal chefs' for the car carrying the Barton family and the three mothers to be, while John and one of the troopers with a talent for cooking served for the other car. The first thing that Adele did was to check the supplies laid in for both cars to confirm that what she'd called for was there, and it was up to her standards.

There wasn't a great deal of work done on this train trip, they were mainly discussing how they would handle the situation in New Orleans.

When they arrived in New Orleans, Andre had Casa Memphis ready for them so they just settled right in, most of the mules had to be corralled in the yard, but at least it wasn't cold there. None of them had been greatly surprised to find that Henri was staying with Andre when they reached the house because the old rogues were like two peas in a pod.

One of their first jobs was to get the carriages into a workable state and painted up so they looked acceptable, but this wasn't difficult as they had acquired a full set of wainwright's tools to dismantle the carriages that they picked up to convert to vapour carriages. They had also ordered enough extra collars and harnesses to hitch up the mules to anything that they could get down there from Mr Landis, and they would remain in New Orleans.

It didn't take them long to locate Roark, because the man was just like Woody Woodcomb (so much so that neither Chuck nor Sarah had been at all surprised when they saw that the two men were associated with one another, especially considering that Roark had originally came from Boston too), and he was wherever the loose women were, so they just headed for the wild end of the French Quarter.

They did manage to identify a number of establishments that he frequented that were less disreputable than most, and Chuck and Sarah, Hattie and Tom, John and Mei and Zondra and Ben started going there enough to be accepted as regulars. They convinced Adele, Ellie and Andy to stay back at Casa Memphis to look after the babies while they were gathering information because it was like Rio de Janeiro, while Adele and Ellie were skilled at this, they _weren't_ ready for creatures like Roark and his ilk.

While they were on the east coast, knowing full well how things were likely to go with Uncle Sam, Sarah and Chuck had tracked down the best quality breast pumps and baby bottles that they could find, so that Sarah could extract some of her breast milk for Ellie and Adele to use to feed the babies while they were out. This way, Sarah was less uncomfortable when she was occupied with work away from her babies, and they could be fed before she came 'home' (though Adele could feed them if the milk Sarah left wasn't enough).

None of them wanted Sarah out there, working the operation like this when their babies were at home, but Chuck and the others had to concede that in New Orleans, the recollections Sarah had from her Daemon were more useful than the ones that Chuck got from his, so their best chance at doing the job and getting home quicker was to let Sarah do her part.

* * *

It took weeks for them to get into the right position for the girls to 'accidentally' catch the attention of Roark and his lieutenants without drawing suspicion but when they did, the letches moved in quickly. Just like Woodcomb, Roark and his cronies had no issue with going after women who were with someone else, even women like Sarah and Hattie, who made it _quite_ clear that they were married and would not think of doing anything to betray their husbands. To 'men' like that, marital status meant no more than the fact that the ladies were less than half their age did (IE: Not a jot!).

While this made Roark and his lieutenants even more loathsome to deal with, it _did_ make them easier to handle (so long as Chuck, Tom, John and Ben made certain that they were between them and their ladies, to ensure that their inappropriate attentions were restricted to looks and words).

The fact that Chuck wanted to extract retribution on Roark whenever he saw him didn't help the situation, but luckily, that could quite easily be put down to being his unhappy about the amount of unwanted attention that Roark was paying to Sarah. They didn't miss the fact that they were in much the same position as they'd been with John and Merriweather and Keller, but the key difference here was that they couldn't do this without Chuck and Sarah's sources of information, and there was _no_ possibility of Chuck letting Sarah go anywhere near Roark without him.

With what they had for personalities, Roark and his cronies had always had to buy time and favours from women, or else try to coerce or force them if trying to buy them wouldn't work. That was why they believed that the way to impress women was to tell them about how much power and money they had, how clever they'd been in swindling others, or what powerful people they had in their pockets to push through whatever they wanted. Given that this was exactly the type of information they needed to get from them, the team forced themselves to sit through Roark and the others ignoring Chuck and the other men as they talked and made advances at Sarah, Hattie, Zondra and Mei.

Roark and the others had dismissed Chuck, Tom, John and Ben as lily livered dandies, too afraid of the guards that they always surrounded themselves with to do anything, and that was why they just sat there and took this without doing anything about it. They took their tailored Eastern clothes and manners as proof that the western hair and beards were no more than attempts to make themselves look roguish to impress their women. So long as none of them tried to touch the girls, the men forced themselves to sit through the women they loved being treated like nothing but trollops who were their's for the picking by these animals, but even without the link that Sarah shared with Chuck, the other girls could feel how close their men were to exploding as this was going on.

After any of these sessions, all eight of them (and the other men who were forced to sit there and watch) spent a fair time hitting punching bags and sparring with each other, trying to purge themselves of the pervasive rage and disgust that they felt after being subjected to creatures such as Roark and his cronies. These venting sessions were an eye opener to the others, because while they'd all received some level of instruction and training in the fighting arts from Chuck, John, Sarah and Mei, few of them had seen just what they could do when they went all out. The displays that they put on when they were burning off their outrage were quite impressive, and more than a little frightening.

The sparring sessions did do them good as far as giving them an outlet for their anger and outrage, but it was also doing a quite a good job of toning them up, especially Sarah. She'd been upset about what the months of forced inaction through the latter stages of her pregnancy, and the childbirth itself, had done to her body. She knew that Chuck meant every word of it when he told her that she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to him, the situation with Adele did nothing to make her question that and no-one else's opinion meant anything to her, but in herself she'd felt less desirable because of the shape she was in after her pregnancy.

Now though, with these intense training sessions she was doing to try and burn off her rage and disgust at creatures like Roark (and the _other_ intense sessions she had with Chuck), her body was quickly getting back into the shape it had been before she was pregnant (aside from her rather larger breasts from the nursing), and she was quite happy about that. What made it even better for her was the fact that through her link with Chuck she could sense that, even though his love and desire for her hadn't diminished in the least when she was pregnant (or after), he was appreciating her body's return to its former shape too.

Once they'd had their sessions to work off their anger, they'd wash up and get on with their other work. Sarah and Chuck would devote time to be with their babies, and then keep them with them while they wrote up everything that they had discovered or recollected through the sessions with Roark and the others.

One thing that was a quandary in regard to their babies was the fact that they kept growing and developing faster than other babies seemed to. At not quite four months, they were more of a size that most babies were at six months, and their extraordinary awareness of their surroundings at birth had just kept increasing. Chuck and Sarah had talked to them as they would someone grown from birth, because they sensed that they understood much of what was being said to them, and the rest of the family had followed suit. They were already making recognisable (if simple) words and starting to put them together, and they were sitting up by themselves, too. Chuck and Sarah knew that their family would never be normal, by any stretch of the imagination, but this didn't bother them in the least, they were quite happy to have extraordinary children.

Once they'd written up their reports, Sarah had fed the babies and they'd settled them down to sleep, Chuck and Sarah would generally sit down with the others who'd been with them (and Adele, Ellie and Andy) to discuss what they'd learned, and what direction they would go as a result of that. While their direction generally didn't change, there were at times developments that did merit a change.

* * *

Part of their problem in dealing with Roark was that neither Chuck nor Sarah had acquired many recent memories relating to him, the majority of what they had on him was from Chuck's father and related to him using his family's power to steal ownership of all of Stephen's inventions and then destroy him. While Roark was a big man in New Orleans and California, most of the Ring apparently didn't know much about him, therefore, they had to do most of their information gathering the traditional way, conning or goading him into giving it up.

Luckily, Roark's ego was even bigger than his fat belly, and he was so tied up with the image of his importance and perceived charm in his own head that he clean missed seeing the disdain with which Sarah regarded him, the fact that she was generally sitting right in front of him, holding Chuck's hand, or even Chuck's resemblance to his father (though, to be fair, the tanned skin, long, partially sun-bleached hair and beard did alter his appearance some).

They could both see from Roark's gloating expression that he believed that Sarah was falling for his act, and knew that he had some plan to try and trick Chuck into attacking him or something of the like so that his men would have an excuse to kill him, thereby removing any obstacles between Roark and Sarah. He obviously wasn't thinking of anything past getting his hands on Sarah and having his way with her.

Watching Roark and listening to him spill everything in response to the occasional prod from Sarah, Chuck was reminded of Bolonia's son Morgan, the village idiot of Los Angeles. All Sarah had to do to make Roark sing like a bird was make a comment or give him a look that implied that she was less than impressed with him and what he'd done, and he'd start blathering on about all the other underhanded deals he had done, or was in the middle of, for money and power.

He even boasted about how he'd made his fortune by stealing Chuck's father's inventions, and then getting a family friend who was a judge to rule that all the inventions were rightfully his, and charge Chuck's father, their real creator, with trying to steal them, cackling like a hyena all the way through the story.

Sarah could feel Chuck's struggle not to kill the despicable creature then and there as he gleefully told this story, as this was too much to be borne. She could sense that he was on the brink, so she suddenly stood and said she wasn't feeling well, asking him to take her home. Roark tried to reach for her, to stop her leaving, but jerked back his hand as if burnt, because somehow Chuck was suddenly standing between them, impaling him with a baleful glare. Even something such as Roark had to get an inkling of the danger he was in at that point, so he made a half arsed attempt at being charming as he said "I do hope that you feel better soon, my dear, and I look forward to our interlude tomorrow" before he scuttled off with his tail between his legs, as quickly as he could.

When they got back to Andre's (they were using his house for their entry to Casa Memphis, as it would have looked suspicious if anyone followed them and saw them going into a commercial storehouse), Sarah asked the troopers to wait while they changed and got their babies and a picnic basket, then they headed out into the countryside to spend the rest of the afternoon as a family, well away from all the hateful influences in New Orleans. Sarah had quickly explained what had happened to Adele and she agreed that an afternoon with just her and the babies was just what Chuck needed.

* * *

Sarah tried to get Chuck to agree that they had enough evidence to bring Roark down so they could just get rid of him and leave, but he shook his head regretfully, saying that they couldn't do that until they'd determined enough about Roark's connections to track them all down.

They were a strange sight as they were having this discussion, discussing affairs of state and extermination as they were, because Sarah was leaning back against Chuck's shoulder feeding their sons, while Chuck was laying down with their daughters asleep on his chest (their children had always found the steady rise and fall of their father's chest and his heartbeat very restful, so that was one of the surest ways to get them off to sleep).

Sarah looked down at their sons fondly, then returned her attention to her husband. "Well how much longer do you think we're going to have to go through this crap? Because you better believe that the next time that bastard tries to grab me in front of you I'm going to chop his damned hands off!"

Chuck carefully leaned his head in (to avoid disturbing the girls), and Sarah moved equally carefully to meet him, sharing a long, soft, sweet kiss, finishing with another brief, soft kiss. Then he answered her.

"I'm sorry, I know it's hard for you, dealing with creatures like him, but I believe we're getting close to the more serious government connections with these mining rights he's started boasting about, if we can just get that story out of him, we should be able to wind this up more quickly."

She turned her head to kiss him quick again. "Idiot! You know full well that I'm more worried about what putting up with Roark trying to grab me and his innuendo and comments about me and your father is doing to you."

Chuck leaned in to return the kiss. "Shush. I'm alright, I'm a big boy and I can handle Roark, I just hate that you have to put up with all of his leering and advances."

Sarah moved in for another kiss and chuckled throatily as she sent him an image ribald enough to make him gasp as she responded. "Oh, I know you're a big boy!"

Chuck was blushing as he gasped. "Sarah! Do you want to scar our children? Do you really think they're ready for images like _that_?"

Sarah smiled to herself as she adjusted her position to rest her head on his shoulder, happy to have taken his mind off the previous topic a little. "Bah! I sent that directly to you, not them, and even if they did see it, I expect that they've seen more than that when I've been thinking of you."

That got a soft laugh out of him, even though he was still blushing, and he kissed her on the head. "What would Aunt Julia think, to hear you talk like that? I love you."

She sniggered. "She'd probably be prostrate with shock, and tell me it wasn't proper. And I love you too!"

When the boys had finished feeding and she'd burped them, Sarah rearranged her clothes to cover herself up and they settled down to relax, swapping the babies they held so that Chuck could get the boys to sleep, as the girls were.

After they'd had an afternoon nap (even Chuck and Sarah, as it was very peaceful out there), Sarah fed the girls, and then they reluctantly agreed that it was probably time to get back.

* * *

When they did, the others were anxiously waiting, as Roark's lieutenants had left on his heels so they'd been back at Casa Memphis all afternoon. They knew where Chuck and Sarah were, because while the portable wireless telegraphs that they took with them had insufficient range to answer the call for their status from Casa Memphis, one of the troopers had ridden back to advise their location and collect a few more men to expand the guard out there, but they'd left them to have their time to themselves.

Seeing Chuck and Sarah come in, _without_ the 'about to explode' tension that they'd been radiating as they left the absinthe parlour, the others relaxed, happy to see that they'd managed to release that tension.

Everyone was trying to keep the discussion on light matters, but Chuck could see that John was aggravated about something, so he just held his hand out for the telegram that he knew had arrived (in their previous stint in New Orleans, they'd installed a telegraph station in Casa Memphis to allow them to communicate with Washington and everywhere else more effectively and created a business by the same name. While businesses maintaining their own telegraph stations were far from common, they weren't unheard of in New Orleans, so this merely marked Casa Memphis as a progressive and successful trading house, rather than something particularly suspicious). John tried to pretend that he didn't know what Chuck was getting at, but gave in and handed it over when Chuck kept his hand out.

The telegram from Uncle Sam was basically saying what Chuck had said to Sarah, that they _had_ to pursue this new line and determine who the government contacts for that were. Chuck handed the message to Sarah, who screwed it up and threw it across the room with a curse when she read it.

After that, it was silently agreed that there would be no more business for the night, so they settled down to the nice dinner that Adele, Ellie and their helpers had prepared, then had a night of music and dancing. The fiddles, guitars, banjos, flutes, harmonicas and the like came out straight after dinner, and all the girls were danced off their feet, even the girls from Andre's as Sarah had gone through to wheedle Oncle Andre into releasing them from their duties for the night with an invitation for him and Oncle Henri to join in as well.

When they were getting their breath back, with the babies sitting in people's laps around the room and laughing to the music, Andre brought up the fact that they'd need to organise the ironwork and other things for Kathleen and Alex's house soon, and pointed out that that was best done while they were in New Orleans. That in turn led to the discussion that the designs for the house would have to be completed first, to get the dimensions right, and Sarah threw her arms around Andre's neck with a laugh and kissed him on the cheek, as designing the house for Kathleen and Alex was just the sort of thing that Chuck needed to get his mind off the other issues of their current visit to New Orleans.

* * *

Chuck wasn't the only one being confronted with family issues in this operation though, as John ran into his father and brothers one time they were following up on Roark and his dealings, because _they_ were part of the organisations in bed with Roark. When Chuck saw the Coburns heading for John, he grabbed Elijah and Jacob, and quickly told them to race over to the Colonel and pretend to be deferential darkies who were afraid of how Monsieur Dumont would react because they didn't get what he'd sent them for. He pushed them at John and told them to make sure they reached the Colonel before those three men did, softly calling "Speak French!" to them as they raced off.

Elijah and Jacob played their parts to perfection, cowering in front of John (or rather Monsieur Dumont, as he was Louis Dumont at the moment) as they told him that the shop that he'd sent them to didn't have the pieces that he wanted. John hadn't seen his father and brothers yet, but he knew that the troopers wouldn't have been sent to do this for no reason, so he launched into a tirade, cuffing them around the head and lambasting them in rapidfire French, demanding to know what other shops they'd tried. When they said none, he grabbed Elijah by his shirt and flung him back the way he'd come, telling him he better not come back without what he was sent for, if he had to try every shop in New Orleans!

John spied his father and brothers as he hurried Elijah along with a boot to his derrière, and barked "Rester!" at Jacob when he went to follow Elijah. Turning his back on his father and brothers, he continued to lambaste Jacob in Cajun French. Jacob's eyes widened when he got a good look at the men approaching and recognised who they must be, but he quickly changed that to a look of fear as he cowered in front of John.

When his father addressed him, 'Monsieur Dumont' affected not to know much English (as his father and brothers had never made any effort to learn French, the language of his mother's family) and tried to brush him off, but he was quite persistent. Luckily, like Chuck, John had kept the longer hair and beard that he'd grown in their time in the desert, because the beard quite effectively covered up the scar on his cheek from his childhood that one of them may have recognised him by, and this wild and dangerous looking bear of a man bore no great resemblance to the clean cut young West Point student who they'd last seen at his mother's funeral nearly sixteen years before.

When his father kept badgering him in English, Chuck, Sarah, Tom and Hattie joined him (as his business partners and their wives), freezing the Coburns out when they tried to introduce themselves as they ignored the interlopers and began talking to 'Louis' in rapidfire Cajun, Louisiana and 'normal' French. They included enough business details to make it sound legitimate just in case any of the Coburns _had_ actually learned French in the last sixteen years.

Eventually, the Coburns gave up and left, as John's father had decided that his treatment of the blacks was proof that this couldn't be Alexander Junior anyway, because he'd always been soft on the slaves and other coloureds, just like his mother. She was his other sons' mother as well, but after his eldest adopted his wife's ridiculous ideas the way he did, he had ensured that he moulded his younger sons into copies of himself by maintaining rigid control over their lives and keeping them away from their mother until she died. John's youngest brother Phillip still thought that it was highly unlikely that there could be _another_ giant as tall as Johnny who spoke French like their mother and her family did, sounded like him _and_ had his mannerisms in New Orleans, but he wasn't brave enough to speak out against his father, only Johnny ever did that. Phillip had learned to do whatever his father told him to, just like Roger.

Once they'd left, Chuck explained to John that he hadn't had much time when he saw his father and brothers heading for him, so the act with Elijah and Jacob was the only thing he was able to come up with. John nodded, appreciating that he hadn't been caught unprepared by his family, and the look he sent Jacob's way promised a proper apology to him and Elijah when they were back at Casa Memphis. Jacob nodded, trying to make it look like he was still cowering.

Back at Casa Memphis, Elijah and Jacob played it up for a while, responding to anything John said with "Yes Massa", "Sorry Massa" and the like until he growled that that was enough, and they stopped. The Colonel was a good man and they knew that he was grateful for their help, but it just ain't sensible to keep prodding a bear once he starts to snap at you.

* * *

After their all too brief respite from Roark and his type, they headed back to the absinthe parlours where they saw Roark and his minions. Both Sarah and Chuck were determined to finish this quickly though because they'd had their fill of dealing with this piece of loathsome trash, and they knew that the rest of the team felt the same way. When he saw her there Roark was, of course, convinced that Sarah was eager to see him, especially given the dress she was wearing, and he moved in.

When Chuck stood to prevent Roark from reaching Sarah, Roark's guards moved in, in their usual move to intimidate him into backing down as he usually did, but something was different today as he wasn't backing down, there was more steel in him. The head guard tried to tell Roark that there was something wrong here, but he just waved him off because he was certain that the woman was buckling to his charms, and the husband wouldn't be a problem once he had the guards kill him.

Due to their worries about Chuck's change in behaviour, Roark's guards were were staying a lot closer than they normally did. This meant that they were close enough to hear what was being said, which interfered with their plans, so Sarah threw a small tantrum.

"Why are these men standing all around us and staring at me Teddy? I don't like it! Especially _THAT_ one" (pointing at the leader of the guards) "he has been leering at me the whole time he's been here."

She turned to Chuck. "Pierre, I don't like this, take me home!"

Chuck said "Oui, mon cher" and stood to go and draw her chair out for her, but Roark put his hands up to placate Sarah (though his attention didn't really leave her bosom, so amply displayed by the low cut dress she was wearing). "Now my dear, there's no need to be hasty, I can fix this!"

He reluctantly tore his eyes away from her bosom long enough to bark at his men. "You men, go sit over there" (pointing to the other side of the room) "and stop staring at the lady!" He then turned to the leader of the guards. "And _You_. You're fired, get out!" The man started to argue, so Roark brusquely motioned to two of the other men to get rid of him.

As he turned back to Sarah, his eyes were drawn back to her obvious charms as he said "You can see Dearest, as promised I have solved the problem. Please stay so we can continue enjoying our time together!", so he didn't see Chuck meet Hank's eye and glance at the man being hustled out the door, and he certainly didn't see the troopers who went after the man.

Roark was trying to charm the pants off Sarah (literally), but Sarah played him like the consummate actress that she was, pushing him to impress her. It didn't take her much more than half an hour to get him to the point where he started boasted about the political heavyweights that he had in his pocket, and when he wouldn't go into any detail about just who he was talking about (even something like Roark thinks with the big head sometimes, and realises that it's stupid to tell all of your secrets), she pouted and said.

"I do not believe that you really know any of these people that you have been boasting about at all Teddy! You have been telling me that you are more important than the President, but the only people you've told me anything about are these _men_ who work for you!" (sneering as she waved at his lieutenants and guards) "I am done with wasting my time with you!"

She turned to Chuck again. "Pierre, take me home!"

Chuck nodded, saying "Oui, mon cher" as he started to stand, but Roark blurted out. "No! Wait. Wait Dearest. I will tell you!"

Sarah gestured imperiously for Chuck (or rather Pierre) to sit, and looked at Roark with a silent command to continue.

She played Roark like a fish for the next hour and a half, whenever he baulked at giving up names, she'd only have to tell Pierre to take her home to get him talking again. Whenever he came up with a name, they both ran it through the memories that they had, each sending anything significant they accessed. They were sending quite a few mental images to each other over that hour and a half.

In the end, she'd pried enough names out of him to break the back of the Culper Ring's (and Fulcrum's, and Roark's, and the Knights of the White Camelia, Knights of the Golden Circle and a few other organisations that were thought to have disappeared) machinations across the country for some time, perhaps for good (though they were hesitant to say _that_ because they'd seen all too often in this game that when you believe that you've cut the head off of the snake, it's usually just _a_ snake, rather than _the_ snake).

Sarah and Chuck shared a look at that point, his showing awed admiration for what she'd accomplished, and her's excited satisfaction that they'd won, on this point anyway. Sarah was turning back to Roark to shut him down when he looked up from leering at her bosom to see her face.

Roark saw the excitement on still showing on Sarah's face and believed that his plan had worked, that she was hot for him because she was excited about how powerful he was, with all those powerful people in his pocket (well, most of them were owned by the Culper Ring rather than him, but she didn't need to know that. He'd impressed her enough to give it up to him, and that was all that mattered!)

A look of raw hunger flashed over Roark's face as he reached for her. Chuck was looking at John, Tom and Ben to signal that they finally had what they needed so he didn't see Roark's look, but he felt Sarah's revulsion and his attention snapped back to their table.

Chuck caught Roark's hands in an iron grip before he could reach Sarah. Roark immediately called for his head guard in a panic, forgetting in his panic that he'd fired him and had him thrown out. The rest of his guards were no more than cheap thugs and hired guns, so they were unable to read the situation and slow to react, in fact it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Roark and his lieutenants had been knocked out and shoved to the floor (John, Hank, Jerry, Ben and Zondra would be having sessions with them to get more information out of them, and they wanted to ensure that they were healthy at the _start_ of those sessions at least), and Sarah, Chuck, John, Mei, Hattie, Tom, Zondra, Ben, Hank, Jerry and the half dozen other troopers they had in the parlour all had their pistols out and aimed before Roark's guards had time to draw their's.

They gave them a chance, calling for them to surrender, but from the moment the first of the guards went for his gun, it was over within twenty seconds and they were all dead on the floor. As Roark's men hadn't gotten a shot off, and _they_ were all using their revolvers with the hiders attached, the incident didn't attract any attention outside of the parlour. The folk running the absinthe parlour weren't about to cross people like these after what they just saw, so they took the money offered, closed up and disappeared out the back door, with the promise not to say a word about what they saw. They used the portable wireless telegraph to call the carriages and wagons they had waiting nearby to the rear lane behind the parlour (the small portables that could fit into a saddle bag or carpet bag didn't have much range, a mile or two at most unless you rigged up a big antenna, and only about five miles then, but that was enough to call the rest of the team in without attracting attention). The team had taken Roark, his lieutenants and the bodies out the back way, cleaned up any blood so there was no sign of what had happened and left within fifteen minutes.

* * *

When they got back to Casa Memphis Ellie, Andy and Adele joined Chuck, Tom and the women (except Zondra) upstairs while Zondra and the others got to work on Roark and his lieutenants. Zondra could be more ruthless than any of the men when she was determined to get information out of someone.

It took Sarah and Chuck hours to write up everything they'd gotten out of Roark, meanwhile Hattie, Tom and Mei were writing up what they'd gotten from Roark's lieutenants that they'd been handling. While that wasn't anywhere near the volume or level that Sarah had gotten Roark to give up, they had picked up a lot of useful information too. Once she'd finished recording her own information, Hattie was reading what Chuck and Sarah had written and she was getting excited, because she recognised a lot of those names and knew that they were powerful people!

Once they were all finished and they'd read each other's reports, they talked about where they'd have to go from here while they waited for the others to finish working on Roark and his minions. They knew that none of them would leave alive (not even Chuck, Ellie or Mei believed that they didn't deserve their fate, but they still weren't comfortable with what would happen to them), the only question was whether enough would be extracted from them to justify the death they got.

The others came back in the early hours of the morning, because the outgoing tide had been strongest about an hour before midnight, so they'd 'borrowed' a sailing rig small enough to quietly row away from the docks to take the bodies of Roark, his three lieutenants and his guards (including the leader of the guards who they'd grabbed after he was thrown out of the absinthe parlour) out far enough out to ensure that they'd be taken well out to sea before they threw them in. It had taken them quite a while to get back to the docks against the tide in the boat they borrowed.

They filled the others in on the important details while they were writing up their reports (and Zondra, John and Ben also had to write up their findings from earlier). Unfortunately, they hadn't managed to get much more out of Roark, because his life of excess had left him with a weak constitution so he hadn't survived the questioning long enough to give up much else. On the other hand, his lieutenants and the head guard had held up a lot better, and they'd gotten a _lot_ out of them.

As luck would have it, Roark had liked his creature comforts too much to go running about the country on the Ring's business, so he'd sent his lieutenants in his place on most of those trips. While stronger than Roark, the lieutenants gave up everything they knew to try and make them stop, so they'd easily extracted the details of everyone they'd met, every deal they'd made and everything they'd learned from them. The leader of the guards hadn't been in the loop on the organisation's contacts around the country, but he _had_ known the most about where the bodies were buried locally (literally, as well as figuratively), and had given up all the local contacts (including the Coburns) and people in Roark's organisation, he also gave them the locations and means to collect all the money and assets that Roark and the Ring's people had had in and around Louisiana.

Looking at what they'd extracted from them, it was agreed that what those men had given up would advance the cause quite a bit. That gave rise to a rather immediate question to be addressed though, what were they to do with the people, contacts and assets that they'd identified?

They looked at each other and agreed pretty much straight away what order they'd have to be dealt with. They'd hit anyone working for Roark and their organisation who was senior enough to know how to contact anyone related to the Ring and its associates outside of New Orleans that night and stash their bodies somewhere they wouldn't be found for a while. Then they'd go after their other local contacts who were a current and potential threat before they had a chance to find out what had happened and spread the word. Finally, they had to remove any of the Ring and its associates' money and assets _before_ they could be used to rebuild the organisation, or fund any further operations.

There was an awkward silence as everyone waited for someone else to bring up the question that they were all thinking about, but no-one wanted to talk about. Finally, Chuck said it. "What about the Coburns, what are we going to do about them?"

 **A/N: The Knights of the White Camelia and the White League were actual organisations after the war. In our world, t** ** **he Knights of the Golden Circle had finished before the end of the world but in this world they're still going strong.** The Knights of the White Camelia and the White League were mainly concerned with keeping African Americans in their place (under their heel), while the Knights of the Golden Circle were devoted to creating a 'Golden Circle' of slave states that included the Deep South, Cuba, the Caribbean, Central America and parts of South America.**


	6. Cleaning Up

**For some reason I can no longer upload documents to this site and I'm getting unexplained error messages when I try to do most other things too. This is getting old already, so if they don't fix my account I may give up trying to post things here.**

 **Usual disclaimers for the land of litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's way, way back there somewhere. I'm not actually sure where it is any more ;)**

 **There will probably be changes in the first hour or so while I proof read it as well.**

John dug some papers out of the pile and laid them out on the table, these pages detailed his father and brothers' past and on-going operations, what criminal and treasonous activities they'd been part of, and what connections they had with legitimate and nefarious organisations.

Key among these was that Alexander Coburn Senior had been a prominent member of the Knights of the Golden Circle since the mid Fifties and the Knights of the White Camelia and since the end of the war, and he had played a key role in the creation of the White League as the Militia of the Knights of the White Camelia because he argued that they had to keep the blacks under their heel to make sure that they didn't get any ideas before the new order took over. He had risen to Brigadier General in the Confederate Army (though there were questions about whether he had ever actually been on the battlefield himself) and had had his sons Roger and Phillip assigned to his staff, promoting Roger to Lieutenant Colonel and Phillip to Major by the end of the war. _General_ Coburn would never deign to sully himself by joining the commoners in the Klu Klux Klan to get things done, so he campaigned to have the White League created, and then drafted in KKK members to use as foot soldiers, with members of the Knights of the White Camelia giving the orders of course. Alexander commanded the White League, with his sons Roger and Phillip as his sub commanders.

John gave them a chance to read what was written and then said. "They're probably the biggest threat we have down here, so they need to be eliminated as soon as possible, I'll go after them tomorrow."

The silence that followed that statement made Chuck's quiet response ring out all the louder. "No, you won't John! You've taken this on yourself all too often but I'm not going to let you do it this time! Even if you _are_ estranged they're still your family, and I won't let you take on the responsibility to kill your own family!"

Ben went to speak, but Chuck cut him off. "No Ben! You stepped up to offer to do this for us the last time we were down here, this time it's my turn to shoulder the responsibility."

This sparked a flurry of argument, but they saw the Chuck that they'd only seen a couple of times before, most only once, so they gave in to him. Except for one, as Sarah spoke up. "Our turn!"

When Chuck looked at her, she went on. "I'm not going to argue with you about stepping up to the responsibility to do this Chuck, but you're not doing it alone, it's a responsibility that we'll take on together."

Chuck looked her in the eye for about a minute as they communicated through the link that they had, and then nodded. With that agreed, they organised the teams that were going after the players in Roark's organisation before dawn. The teams who went out that night were all successful, and there was no-one left in any position to raise an alarm in what remained of Roark's organisation by dawn.

Chuck and Sarah had left before dawn on Diablo and Bruja, and were observing the Coburn plantation as the sun came up. Chuck had noted something on the reports that had been compiled on the Coburns and discussed it with Sarah, this being that there was a major armoury where they'd been stockpiling weapons, gunpowder and explosives for the White League's escalating activities on the Coburn plantation. The problem was that the Coburn family were quite prominent and powerful in the political environment down there so any appearance of this being an assassination would cause too many questions to be asked, but a fatal accident in their illicit armoury though, _that_ may not cause as much suspicion.

Once they'd confirmed where everyone was they slipped in, using all the skills they knew from the long dead masters of the craft be as silent and as invisible as ghosts. They silently killed the three Coburns, along with the plantation manager (who was a key player in the White League as well), and Chuck moved them all to the armoury, managing to make it appear from a distance as though the four men had gone there under their own steam. They spent some time staging everything so that each explosion would in turn set off more explosions until the whole armoury blew sky high and set the fuses.

When the coast was clear, they lit the fuses and slipped out as invisibly as they'd slipped in, and waited for the explosion at their previous vantage point. It went up just as they'd planned, exploding quite spectacularly, but there were no extraneous deaths, and only a small number of minor injuries (it appeared that half of those were self inflicted as the white overseers fell and hurt themselves when they were running about in a panic while the explosions were going on). Once they'd confirmed that everything had gone to plan, they slipped away to where they'd left Diablo and Bruja and high-tailed it back to Casa Memphis

As soon as they were back at Casa Memphis, they set things up to show that an anonymous letter had gone to the authorities, as if from someone at the plantation who was afraid to be identified (no-one who knew the Coburns and the whites they hired would question why a Negro on the Coburn plantation would be afraid to be identified), describing the massive explosions that had killed the Coburns, and all the bits of guns that were all over the place at the plantation. It also named a number of prominent local figures who'd turned up and seemed to be looking to see what could be recovered from the explosion debris.

The next day, a freshly shaved and clean cut Marshal John Casey 'arrived' in New Orleans with a cavalry troop (their own men and seventy two others that they had arranged for Uncle Sam to send down from Washington quietly when they were getting closer to shutting Roark down) under the command of Major Thomas Paterson and Captains Andrew Dent, William Davis and Benjamin Barker (Bill and Ben were two of the men who had received brevet promotions to officers in the war and subsequently reverted to their permanent non-commissioned ranks. Uncle Sam had arranged for all of these brevet promotions to be reinstated in the Army records in case they needed to use them to take charge of Army personnel for the operation, as they did now. They couldn't use Rick because putting a black Captain in charge of white troops in the South would have incited a mutiny.) to head up the investigation that was triggered by the letter about the explosion that had killed the three Coburns and their plantation manager (luckily the overseers on the plantation weren't bright enough to work out that it wasn't possible for a letter to have be sent and a troop organised in that time).

Sure enough, they found pieces of enough guns to supply a small army strewn around the area of the explosion and evidence that prodigious amounts of gunpowder and explosives had been stored there (many times what could be explained away for a plantation) to cause an explosion that large. When the white overseers on the plantation refused to answer any questions about the weapons, gunpowder and explosives, they were arrested and taken in for questioning. It was 'discovered' that they were all members of the White League, which had just been listed as an illegal organisation, so they stayed locked up at the Jackson Barracks.

Given that the remains of the armoury provided 'confirmation' of what was in the letter, they picked up all the local figures that had been named for questioning, and with the additional evidence that was 'unearthed', their (honest) protestations that they didn't know anything about the explosion were ignored and they were arrested, along with a slew of others who'd been identified in this 'unearthed' evidence, and all of these worthy citizens were taken back to Washington to go on trial.

By the time they finished picking up all of the people they were after, they'd cleaned out all the coffers and seized any other assets that they'd found out about, so the Culper Ring, Knights of the White Camelia, White League and other groups involved had no money for more weapons or ammunition, no money to buy votes, and no money to pay people to look the other way, so all of the support that they'd relied on had suddenly dried up and disappeared.

When they were picked up, the conspirators had been certain that they'd be free in a few days, but that hard nosed United States Marshal and Army Major were impossible to get around, and all of a sudden none of their friends could be found. The ones in custody started to panic and tried to make deals, giving up all of their erstwhile 'friends' in a desperate attempt to get free. (Sarah was even more disgusted than the others by this, because it was exactly what her father had done to try and save his own sorry neck back in Sixty Two.)

By the time this operation was done, a significant proportion of the prominent figures in and around Louisiana were in chains and on their way to stand trial in Washington. Chuck, Sarah and the others just hoped that this would be enough to let them go home to Los Angeles for a while.

* * *

Once the conspirators had been arrested (well, those who hadn't mysteriously died or disappeared, anyway), the question of how to get them back to Washington to stand trial arose. The option of transporting them via a special train was rejected straight away, as no-one was dumb enough to believe that they'd get even two states before the train was stopped and they were released, or killed to prevent them talking. (They had kept it quiet until they started arresting the conspirators, but word of what was going on spread like wildfire as soon as that happened.) The suggestion that they 'secretly' ship them up the river on a riverboat and put them on a train in St Louis was ignored for the same reason, and they pointed out that putting these men on a boat to send them through hundreds of miles of country that they and their cronies owned much of would be crazy. Rick blushed when he realised how stupid the idea had been, but he didn't have the experience in this sort of thing that the others had.

Obviously, the only way that they had a chance to get them there was to send them by sea, but even that was fraught with danger, as they didn't know who they could trust. The seed of an idea came to Chuck, and he wired for Joseph (and, after he had another thought on the matter, Joshua) to get to New Orleans as quick as they could, ordering their last dozen troopers and marines under Weed's command to go with them for protection. They'd have the Belle's crew except for Joseph there, and after the training the other people of the hacienda had had, Chuck was reasonably confident that they would be able protect themselves with the weapons they had there.

At the same time, Chuck sent other telegrams, to Pullman's to get a private, hotel or sleeping car, whatever they had that could get there first, to Oakland at the earliest opportunity, within a day at the absolute latest, and to Uncle Sam, calling for the details (and documentation) of the officers on all Navy ships that were close enough to New Orleans to be used for this to be sent down to them as quick as possible.

Uncle Sam asked what the hell he wanted them for, so he explained that Commodore Joseph Paterson knew many of the line officers in the Navy personally, and could therefore provide advice on who could, or couldn't, most likely be trusted for an undertaking of this nature (reminding him that they had 'other sources' available who could help identify trusted officers, as well).

Joseph didn't question the call, he immediately wired Scottie to prepare and crew the Elana while they closed up Casa Memphis and headed for the hacienda as quick as they could. At the hacienda, when Scottie got the wire he had the men jump to, preparing the Elana to depart while Joshua and the men going with them got ready.

On the way to the hacienda, Joseph reflected that Charles had prepared well for this type of eventuality, as there were still over two hundred people at the hacienda (Each time they returned to Los Angeles, Jane had told them about brothel operations that had started up with young girls to fill the void created by their wiping out the Tong brothels in Los Angeles twice, so Chuck and the team raided the brothels to kill the operators and rescue the girls. Since the Tongs had realised that brothels with young girls in Los Angeles would be wiped out and stopped shipping any more Chinese girls down, these girls had mainly been young black, white, Mexican and Indian girls who'd been sold to the brothel operators by Mexican and Indian bandit chiefs. Many of these girls had no-one to go back to as they were all that was left of their families after the rest had been killed in the raids where they were taken, so over fifty of them had joined the growing family at the hacienda.), and most of them were trained and proficient with the weapons in the hacienda's ample armoury. On top of that, the Belle's crew who were staying at the hacienda could handle the Gatling guns and Six Pounders that Chuck had created and added mounting points around the hacienda for, so Beatrice and their people should be safe while they were away.

Everyone else was aboard and the Elana was ready to pull out when they arrived at the hacienda, so the troopers turned their mules over to the people waiting and they hurried onto the Elana just before it pulled away from the dock.

* * *

By the time the Elana reached the Oakland wharf (just ten hours after Chuck sent his telegrams), there was one of the original Pullman's Hotel cars waiting for them at the station. Joshua couldn't understand why the Weed and the other men from the original troop laughed when they saw it, but they promised to fill him in on the story when they were on the train.

Weed was mightily amused as he watched Joshua and the new men's reaction to the luxury car that had been laid on for them, thinking about how they'd all been the first time they climbed into one of these Pullman cars. He went back to the drawing room where Joshua and Joseph were and knocked on the door, asking if Joshua was ready to hear the story now? They waved him in, but he shook his head, saying that if they came forward he could hear from all of them, so they nodded and got up, coming forward to where the rest of the troopers and Marines were sitting, accepting glasses of whiskey from the men when they sat down.

Weed waved his glass around and said "The first time we saw one of these cars, we were with your son Captain. The cars were a little more crowded that trip, because we had the full platoon, plus Major Paterson, Captain Dent, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Marshal Casey but we were excited because we hadn't seen anything like it before."

"Most of us had never dreamed of even seeing luxury like this, let alone riding in it, it was really something else! The thing was though, we only ever travelled like that from then on and we got used to it, along with travelling first class on steamers and the swanky hotels and duds. Yeah, we've also spent months on the road, camping rough a lot of the time, but when we're anywhere that supports it, we live like rich folk."

Joseph started to say that they weren't rich, but Weed waved that away with an apology. "Oh, I wasn't saying anything about you or Major Paterson Sir, it's just that most of us are ordinary folk, and your life is a dream for most of us, but the life that we've become part of with Chuck is more than we could have ever dreamed of!"

The other men started adding their versions of the story then, laughing about how the good life had been stepped up even more when they started going back east in smaller groups, because they were getting beds to themselves, something most of them had never had in their lives. They also talked about how most of the group (including Major Paterson, Captain Dent, Colonel Barton, Miss Sarah, Miss Ellie and Marshal Casey) would sit up on the roofs of the horse cars, watching the scenery as they went back and forth across the country.

They talked about living in the most expensive hotels in cities around the country, getting new wardrobes that cost more than they made in a year when they started another operation, and being made to feel a part of this life by Colonel Barton and the others, including Major Paterson and Missus Paterson, and Weed summed it up with a laugh after the stories had been told.

"The thing is, this" (waving his glass around the car) "is actually a step down from what we've become used to and _that_ is what we were laughing at. The fact that we could look at something like this" (waving his glass again) "and think that it wasn't up to our standards."

Joshua had to laugh, when he put it like that, as he would have burst out laughing too if he'd got off the boat and was disappointed to see that he'd gone 'back' to _this_ level of luxury for this trip.

* * *

The 'original' troopers were well versed in the ways to fill in time on these train trips, so they'd bought cards, instruments, books (well, some of them did) and booze, they also told Joseph and Joshua (and the marines) stories about their travels and adventures with Major Paterson and Colonel Barton (nothing sensitive, just stories about some of the places they'd gone, the months they spent on the road in the backwoods of Colorado, the trek across the desert to Four Corners, riding out the earthquake in Lone Pine and that mad dash up through the Sierras afterwards to catch the train back east, that insane train ride from Washington to New Orleans at breakneck speeds and the like).

They didn't talk about the voyages on the Belle (as Joseph had been there), but looking at Joshua's wide eyes as he listened to their other stories, Joseph started telling him about it, their naval battle, steaming thousands of miles up the Amazon river, seeing icebergs at the bottom of the world, they'd certainly got their share of excitement when they signed up for this group!

Joseph was quite impressed with Weed, or First Sergeant Michael Johnson to use his proper name, he'd known he was a good man and very bright (What he was doing with electrical devices was a wonder!), but he was seeing something more here, this man was definitely officer material!

Aside from telling stories, they didn't have much to do on the train. Some of the troopers were complaining that the train journey was taking days longer than their first trip to New Orleans had, but Weed reminded them that that time, they'd had a private train and they'd been pushing as hard as they could, only stopping when they had to, while they were on a normal train this time.

* * *

Thinking about Weed's insights, Joseph asked if they could have a quiet word. When they were in Joseph's compartment with the door shut, he launched into it "Sergeant Johnson..."

Weed cut him off. "Sorry Captain, but the only time I'm ever called that, I'm being disciplined. So if it's all right with you, I'd prefer to be called Weed."

"Really? You're more comfortable being identified with a nickname like _that_?"

Weed quirked a smile. "I guess I'm like Muffin Sir, I prefer to be different."

"Muffin?"

"My molly, the man we got the mules off said that he named her that because she was affectionate. Muffin is that, but aside from what she looks like on the outside she's nothing like the other mules, she's always getting into something." He shrugged and added with a grin. "I guess we're two of a kind that way, so she suits me."

Joseph smiled. "OK, Weed it is. Now, what I wanted to talk to you about is…. do you have any idea what we, or at least I, am going to New Orleans for?"

Weed looked thoughtful. "Well, you know the sort of thing we really do most of the time?" Joseph nodded.

"Chuck and the others were sent down there to ferret out what's risen up since we pulled apart everything there and headed off to South America. The telegrams we've been getting have been showing that they've done the main job and they're winding up now, but the team would normally have headed off to Washington by now to hand over the evidence and get back to California, so the fact that they're still in New Orleans says that they're waiting on something, and you apparently have something to do with that."

"One message did say something about taking prisoners back to Washington to stand trial, and that's the only thing that makes sense."

Joseph just looked at him, confused, so he continued. "How would you move important and powerful prisoners from New Orleans to Washington so you could put them on trial Captain?"

When he didn't get a response, he went on, holding up one hand and folding down his fingers each time he made a point. "Going by road, there would be too much risk of interception, take too long, and it wouldn't be an option at all if they had more than a few. A train could carry more men and be faster, but it'd be bound to be stopped before they got too far. Riverboat, it'd be the same as the train, and there'd be too much chance that the ones running it would be on the other side besides, as locals. That just leaves taking them by sea, but an unarmed ship would be in danger of being stopped by warships controlled by the other side, so the ship they're on would have to be Navy, and I expect that that's where you come in Captain."

Joseph looked at him, wide eyed, as it all came together. When Weed laid it out this way, he felt foolish for not seeing it himself, though it had obviously involved a lot more canny deductions than Weed had made out. "Of course! Charles wants me to help him determine which of the Navy captains can be trusted to transport these prisoners to Washington, but.." He stopped himself, realising that he'd been about to let Chuck and Sarah's secret slip.

He was surprised when Weed shook his head and, glancing at the door, said quietly. "It doesn't work that way Sir, they can only remember what the ones who's memories they have do, so while they may have memories of some of the Navy, I'm betting that Chuck would be more comfortable relying on your experience and judgement to get a feel of the sympathies and affiliations of the officers of the ships that he has to choose from."

Joseph looked at him. "You know, obviously?"

Weed nodded "Chuck told most of us before someone put things together and said something in front of the wrong people."

"You're not the simple bumpkin you try to make out you are at all, are you Weed?"

Weed grinned "Oh, I'm a bumpkin alright Captain, but I've always been interested in sorting out how things work, or more to the point how they _could_ work. The first chance I had to get away from the farm was when I signed up for the war when I was twelve or thirteen. The Cavalry gave me a chance see other places, and learn more, and I never went back to the farm, but it was Chuck who saw something different in me and tried to make me see that I could do a lot more than I was doing."

Joseph nodded with a smile. "Yes, Charles is something, isn't he?"

"Yep, but so are the others, Sarah, well Chuck met his match with her, they're two of a kind, and it's a privilege to be part of their world. Ellie, she's just as smart and kind as her brother is, and Marshal Casey, well he tries to hide who he is under the Bear act, but there's a hell of a lot more to the man than that."

"You don't include Thomas, Andrew, Harriet or Zondra in that world?"

Weed put up his hands to placate him. "Don't mean no disrespect Captain, but the Major and the Captain, they was with us when we was assigned to look out for them. They're exceptional soldiers to be sure, but they wouldn't have been assigned to a duty as important as this is they weren't, and Miss Carina, I mean Miss Hattie, and Miss Zondra, well they came along later. Make no mistake Captain, we're in Chuck and Sarah's world, and Ellie and the Marshal are key parts of it, the rest of us are mainly along for the ride."

Joseph looked at him, _hard_ , for a minute or so as he thought on what he'd just said, then nodded. He was having a hard time accepting what he'd heard, but Weed was right, the rest of them were revolving around the key pieces, and that was Charles, Sarah, John and Eleanor. He apologised to Weed.

"I'm sorry Weed, I just hadn't looked at it that way until you pointed it out, and I have to say that it doesn't sit well, being made to see that you and most everyone else is playing second fiddle to someone else."

"Well, I know that Chuck doesn't see it that way, _he_ doesn't really believe he's that special, but yeah, in the real world, we do, that's why the President puts the Army and the Navy at our disposal whenever we need them, well that and Sarah."

At Joseph's confused look over his last comment, Weed laughed. "Hasn't anyone mentioned that Sir? Sarah, she's all but President Grant's daughter, has been ever since they met in the war and she changed sides for him. He gave her away when she married Chuck and everything."

Joseph shook his head. "No Weed, no-one has ever mentioned _that_!"

He shook his head again and then held out his hand. "Well thank you Weed, you've given me clarity on a lot of things here, a lot more than I was looking for when I asked you in here actually."

"Don't think badly of Chuck, Captain, he didn't ask for any of this, he was just pushed into it and he's been doing the best he could, and that's more than anyone else could have, if I may say so!"

Joseph shook his head again. "No, Weed, you're right, he's exceptional, they all are, and it's a privilege to be part of their world, it was just a bit of a blow to the self esteem to suddenly have to face what my place in that world is. I know that Charles doesn't see us that way, and that just makes him all the more special."

Weed nodded as he shook his hand, and stood to leave, but Joseph stopped him. "Wait, what did you mean about Harriet and Miss Carina Weed?"

"Well, Miss Hattie was using the name Carina Miller when we first met her, she got them to change it back to her real name, Harriet Quinlan, when we were in Washington after that, because she wanted people to know who she really was, and I'm pretty sure that was mainly for Major Paterson."

Joseph thanked him, and Weed nodded again, with that he left to see what trouble the men had gotten up to while he was occupied.

* * *

When they arrived in New Orleans, there was a carriage and a wagon waiting at the railroad station for them. Weed and one of the troopers went in the carriage with Joseph and Joshua, while the rest went in the wagon with the bags for the short trip to Casa Memphis (well, the carriage went to Andre's).

After a brief reunion, Joseph turned to Chuck and said. "I believe that you want me to help select ships with officers who can be trusted, Charles?"

At the question on Chuck's face, he nodded at Weed, and Chuck nodded. "Yes Sir, would you like to rest up first, or are you ready to start?"

"We got enough rest on the train, so why don't we get started?"

Chuck nodded as well, and held out his hand to Sarah as he waved Joseph and Joshua into the room they used as an office. Inside, Chuck explained that they had to transport a large group of prominent figures up to Washington to try them for treason, so they were looking into the affiliations and connections of the officers on the Navy ships that were in range to be used, to ensure that the ships' officers didn't have any conflict of interest that would jeopardise getting the prisoners to Washington to stand trial.

Joseph asked who the prisoners were, and whistled when Chuck told him the names of some of the more important ones.

When Joseph had had a chance to recover, Chuck handed him the first pile of folders "These are the ships that we" (nodding at Sarah) "believe are our best options, so we were hoping that you could look through them and tell us what you know about their officers?"

Joseph nodded as he took the files, but looked up as he opened the first file. "You know that Weed had put all of this together before we left Los Angeles? That young man is exceptional!"

Chuck nodded "That's part of the reason we have him handling all of the communications through Los Angeles for us Sir, he's bright enough to know what's going on and spot anything that's out of place, and if he has any concerns about something he'll let us know."

Joseph nodded his aceptance at that and started working through the file.


	7. Trials and Ghosts of the Past

**Well, it looks as though the escalating problems I was experiencing have now been resolved and we've returned to normal programming, I'll leave it to you folk to decide whether that's a good thing or not. ;^)**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

Over the next couple of hours, they discussed any potential issues with the officers of all of ships within range. Eventually Chuck sent the names of two ships to Uncle Sam to be sent to New Orleans (one of them being the USS Florida, the steam frigate that took them to Washington last time, and the other her sister ship the USS Iowa), and six ships who's officers should be investigated to determine whether their questionable loyalties represented a threat to the country. When they got to Washington, the full list would be handed to Uncle Sam, but those ships had a marked majority of officers who raised concerns.

With the important task out of the way, they settled back to relax with the others, as they had four or five days wait for the ships to arrive. Joseph pointed his glass at Chuck and Sarah. "You know, young Mister Weed filled me in on a few things on the way here, including who's ward you were Missus Barton, did you not trust me enough to tell me this?"

Tom went to speak, but he cut him off. "I'll deal with you later my boy, for now my question is for Sarah."

Sarah shook her head. "It wasn't like that Joseph, it was like Chuck told you down south, there were too many ears on the boat. We had meant to tell you once we were settled at the hacienda, but having to deal with Captain Stevens and his men took the opportunity to do so before you and Scottie went back east to organise you and your wives' move to the hacienda away from us. Then as soon as the babies were settled down, we headed east to get Alex back to school and tell the families about the other babies who were on the way. And you know how much time we had to talk when we came home from _that_ trip to get ready for this one. We were going to tell you, but events conspired to prevent us."

Joseph nodded at that, and turned to Tom and Hattie. "So, would someone care to explain why I was not told that until recently, my daughter-in-law was working for the Secret Service under her Aunt Carina's name instead of her own?"

Tom went to answer, but Hattie put her hand on his arm to stop him. "Don't go blaming Tommy for that! It wasn't his secret to tell, it was mine. I told you that I joined the Secret Service through one of my aunt's lovers" (Joseph went to say something and she nodded quickly) "no, I called him a friend, didn't I? Well the fact is he was one of her lovers, and I must admit that I used her name and acted like her for much of the time I was in the Secret Service, up until I caught up with Sarah again and became part of their world." (Joseph had to smile when he heard her put it just as Weed had) "I met Tommy and realised that I didn't want to be like that any more, so I asked the President to help me get everything changed back to my real name, Harriet Quinlan, so I could try to be myself again, rather than a copy of my Aunt Carina."

She had tears in her eyes as she was telling him this, and Joseph stood and crossed the room to her to pull her into his arms, kissing her on the head and telling her that everything would be fine. She put her arms around him and hugged him back fiercely, and they stood like that for a while until she'd settled down and he asked softly. "Are you all right, Daughter?"

She smiled up at him tearfully and stretched up to kiss him on the cheek, whispering. "Yes, Father."

Sarah piped up at that point. "It appears that Weed has been telling you rather a lot of things Commodore?"

Joseph shook his head. "It wasn't like that Sarah," (not missing the irony of repeating her own words back to her) "he just let slip a few things, like President Grant's concern for you, and that Harriet was known as Carina when he met her, and I asked him to explain. None of it was done out of malice, he has nothing but the highest regard and affection for all of you."

He stopped and turned back to Tom. "That was the other thing I wanted to ask you Thomas, why isn't that man an officer? He's better than most officers I know!"

Tom shook his head with a smile. "Well truth be told Dad, he _is_ an officer. Weed was given a permanent promotion to First Sergeant, a Brevet promotion to First Lieutenant and the Medal of Honor after the Battle of Cripple Creek. He reverted to First Sergeant after the war, but the President reinstated all the men with Brevet First Lieutenant promotions as Brevet Captains when we started this business in case we needed extra clout to deal with the Army when we needed them. So Weed is officially Captain Michael Johnson, but he's still using his First Sergeant rank."

Joseph nodded, and then looked at Bill and Ben thoughtfully. Tom smiled again, nodding. "Yes Dad, Bill and Ben are currently using their Brevet ranks of Captain. Hank and Jerry were also made Brevet Captains, but they've been reinstated as Brevet Majors because of their seniority. We have four more who were made Brevet First Lieutenants, so they're Brevet Captains now too."

* * *

They kept to lighter subjects after that, which included the story of how Casa Memphis had actually been the Bartowski family's home until they had to sell it in the war.

John, Chuck, Joshua (the reason Chuck had asked for him to come was that he was an experienced and respected officer, and as a lieutenant colonel he outranked everyone except for him and John down there) and Tom were overseeing the incarceration of the traitors while they awaited the Navy ships, with the men of their platoon making use of their brevet officer ranks in key positions. The officers who had been stationed at the Jackson Barracks weren't happy about being pushed aside and told what to do, but they couldn't argue with two colonels and a lieutenant colonel.

The USS Florida and USS Iowa arrived together (as sister ships, they had similar capabilities), and once they'd had their coal bunkers and water tanks filled, the prisoners were transferred to the Florida, along with their men to guard them.

While the ships were docked (with the other troopers of Tom's 'Company' and the ships' marines guarding the docks), they briefed the Captains of the two ships on how the operation would proceed. Though surprised by Joseph's presence and rank (both Captains had known him in the war, and knew that he'd been discharged after the war for medical reasons, for that matter they'd seen him a few times on social occasions since then as a civilian), they accepted their orders and his authority without question.

They left it to Joseph to brief the Captains, as Navy matters were his responsibility. The briefing was fairly simple, in essence that the prisoners would be carried on the Florida, while the Iowa would deal with anyone who tried to interfere with them. With that, the two Captains were handed their sailing instructions and they ordered their ships fired up.

When both ships had indicated that they were fired up and ready to proceed, they cast off and departed the harbour. The trip to Washington would take them about the same time as their previous trip to Washington. When the Florida and Iowa departed, three of their troopers and three of their marines headed to the station to load all of their mules onto the three waiting horse cars on the train that would take them back to Oakland, and hence the hacienda, while the other troopers returned to Washington by train.

When they arrived in Washington, the Iowa stood off below Alexandria, but the Florida proceeded on up to the Arsenal, where they signed the prisoners over to the President's aides (who they knew by sight) as previously agreed with the President. They made their goodbyes to the Captain and officers of the Florida and disembarked there as well. Joseph was a little choked up to be given full honours as a Commodore for the first (and most probably only) time as he disembarked.

Many people wondered about the cavalcade of steam carriages and wagons that trundled through Washington, especially when they all pulled into the Willard. The Willard had their bookings ready (they'd sent a confirmation before they left the Arsenal), so they were all directed straight to their rooms. As usual Adele took a bedroom in Chuck and Sarah's suite, and she'd be looking after the babies with Ellie (and a protection detail) while the main members of the team were tied up in meetings. She laughed when Sarah asked her if she'd be OK here.

"Oui, I believe that I can struggle through here Sarah!" Sarah shared her laugh and went to the other room to get back to work with Chuck, organising the evidence that they were putting together for the case against the traitors.

They really wanted to get out of there and head home to California, but they were fully expecting to be told that they'd have to stay around to testify in the trial. For that matter, they expected to get tied up in the Navy's proceedings relating to what they'd put together with Joseph about the naval officers on the ships that they'd reviewed as well.

* * *

Sarah was held up getting things ready for the babies the next morning so Chuck went in with Tom, Zondra, Andy, Ben and a protective detail, while John waited to come in with Sarah and Hattie when they were ready (Hattie was poorly as the morning sickness was starting to hit her hard).

Chuck and the others had been in with Uncle Sam for half an hour by the time Sarah, Hattie and John reached the President's house, and at that they'd saved ten minutes by coming in via the rear entrance. Bill was telling Hattie about a remedy for morning sickness that his mama had sworn by, and they were laughing about some of the ingredients that he was telling them about, when Hattie looked the other way as they turned a corner in the hall and froze.

When she first whispered "Johnny?", she was so quiet that no-one heard her, but they certainly did when she screamed " _ **Johnny!**_ ", because the fear and horror in her voice was quite clear! They all froze when they spun around and saw what she was staring at, but only for a moment. John darted a look at Sarah, and she nodded for him to go, letting him know with that nod that she'd look after Hattie.

Sarah's nod had the effect of releasing the hounds, and John charged down the hall, with Bill and half of the protective detail trying to keep up with him. At the same time, Chuck was tearing out of Uncle Sam's office with Tom, Andy, Ben and their protective detail trying to keep up with _him_ , as he'd felt Sarah's reaction and saw the image on her mind.

John had the man that he'd gone after down on the floor with the muzzle of his pistol tearing into the man's cheek before anyone else could reach them. The other marshals standing around had all gone for their guns when this madman had knocked Len down and put a gun to his head, but their hands went in the air quick smart when they found themselves staring down the maws of a large number of pistols.

One of the marshals was in the middle of yelling at John that he and these others were in big trouble for attacking United States Marshals like that when Chuck arrived. Chuck put a hand on his shoulder and John took a breath, trying to relax, eventually responding to the tug on his shoulder to stand up.

Chuck looked up from the creature at their feet to the one who was doing all the talking. "What is _that_ doing here? It was supposed to be in a federal prison, or hanging from a rope a long time ago!"

The man tried to draw himself up, ignoring the futility of that act as John, Chuck Tom and Andy all towered over him. "What are you talking about? That's Len Merrick, a United States Marshal! You're the ones who will be in prison, attacking authorised government officials for no good reason like this!"

He looked up at the commotion down the hall, to see the President approaching with a military escort and sneered at Chuck. "Enjoy the daylight Sonny, it's the last you'll see of it!"

His bravado evaporated though when the President walked straight up to Chuck, asking. "Charles, what is going on?"

Chuck waved to the figure at his feet. "I was just going to ask you that Mister President! We were told that _THIS_ was processed and dealt with a long time ago, so what is it doing here?"

Uncle Sam looked down at the man on the floor, confused. "What do you mean, who is he?"

"This is Daniel Shaw, the one who you told us had been arrested and dealt with before we left Denver!"

The Marshal with the mouth started up again. "Who is this lunatic? I've already told him that this is United States Marshal Len Merrick!"

A look from John made him shut up quick smart, and wet his pants to boot.

Uncle Sam accepted what Chuck had told him unquestioningly, but for appearances' sake he made a point of addressing John next. "Marshal Casey, can there be any doubt as to the identity of this man?"

John shook his head. "No Sir, this is definitely the man that we met as Daniel Shaw, the one we were told was supposed to be picked up from Denver by the Marshals Service and brought back here for processing, followed by incarceration or execution as a traitor. He also pissed himself when he saw me, which I'd say was confirmation that he recognised me."

He waved at the one with the mouth. "And this one seems to have an awful lot to say, so I believe we should….. Question him as well, to determine just what he knows."

The President turned to look at the man, who was all but pleading with him to save him now, all of his bravado gone, but he nodded grimly. "Very well, and perhaps you should question the rest of them as well" (glancing at Chuck and seeing him nod grimly) "to see how far this goes!"

He turned to the Captain of his guard. "Captain, take these men" (waving at the marshals) "into custody, and ensure that no-one talks to them without explicit written authority from me! You are to make sure that no-one from the Marshals Service in particular gets anywhere near them until we've confirmed just how far this goes... Other than Marshal Casey here, of course!"

"But sir, we can't leave you unguarded!"

For the first time, the grim pall over the President's face lifted as he smiled. "I can assure you Captain, I could not be safer than I would be with Colonel Barton's people!"

* * *

They escorted Uncle Sam back to his office, but they were all having trouble concentrating on the matter at hand with the Shaw matter hanging over their heads.

The first thing that Uncle Sam did upon his return to his office was to call for all the files relating to Shaw's arrest and processing, and he called Roan Montgomery to his office as well, to determine just how Shaw had slipped through the cracks. They knew about Roan's history with Hattie, so they weren't questioning him, but underhanded dealings _must_ have been done for Shaw to be here, masquerading as a U.S. Marshal, now.

Once the files on Shaw arrived, things started to make more sense, as the two U.S. Marshals listed as having been sent to collect Shaw were Len Merrick (the name Shaw was using now) and Justin Sullivan, the mouthy one. The official report was that Shaw had been killed, trying to escape in Denver, so the real Len Merrick was presumably dead out there somewhere.

When Roan arrived, they talked the matter over and determined that in the chaos that had ensued while he was trying to straighten out the Secret Service just after he'd taken over, both he and Uncle Sam had presumed that the reports about Shaw had gone to the other one when they came in, when in fact that they'd just been salted away in the files under orders of Judge Turpin, who had also been the one who assigned Merrick and Sullivan to collect Shaw from Denver.

By now, it was obvious that there was a conspiracy going on, even more so when U.S. Marshals turned up at the cells, presenting orders (signed by Judge Turpin and Judge Frollo) to the officer of the guards watching 'Merrick', Sullivan and the others, and demanding that Merrick and Sullivan be turned over to them. Those Marshals started desperately shouting threats of dire consequences when they in turn were locked up beside the others, and the paperwork for their orders was sent straight to the President's office.

Chuck and Sarah had gone to look at the new 'Marshals', and to take a better look at the ones who had been with Shaw as well. What they came back with confirmed that the other side were already moving their minions into key positions, so they obviously had something planned. As a result of Chuck and Sarah's reports about the type of so-called 'men of the law' who were currently accumulating in Washington, and the incidents leading up to that, the President issued orders removing _all_ Marshals except for John from the facilities where the trial prisoners were being held or processed. He put Joshua and Tom in charge of the military security forces that took over (the men who'd been sent to New Orleans made up much of this security force as they'd earned a level of trust in New Orleans), with their troopers holding all the key roles (using their brevet officer ranks).

As their security team had been appropriated to take over guarding the prisoners, Uncle Sam insisted that Chuck, Sarah and the rest of the team move into the residential wing of the President's house, where they'd be better protected.

* * *

It took a while before the hearings of the traitors from Louisiana (and the others who were being collected) could begin, because President Grant had to present evidence to those selected (after being vetted by Chuck and Sarah, of course) to preside over the trials to explain not only why other senators and judges were excluded from the process, but why it was forbidden to discuss even the existence of these trials with anyone else.

Any senators or judges with known southern sympathies, _any_ associations with the Culper Ring, Knights of the White Camelia, White League, Knights of the Golden Circle of other organisations involved, or connections to the prisoners or others on whom they had records of nefarious activities (like Woody Woodcomb, who had yet to answer for _his_ actions) were excluded. The majority of the judges affiliated with the United States Marshals Service had also been excluded after Judge Turpin and Judge Frollo had been arrested and incarcerated by the military. It was actually the overwhelming evidence against Turpin and Frollo, and the type of criminals that they'd been filling the United States Marshals Service with, that went a long way towards convincing the selected members of the panel to agree to the need for secrecy.

The Chief of the United States Marshals Service only barely avoided being arrested himself when he started running around squawking about how many of his marshals and judges had disappeared. The primary reason he _hadn't_ been arrested was that there was more evidence to show that he was no more than a fool who didn't have a clue about what was going on than there was to show that he was part of this, but they still kept an eye on him, just in case.

Tom had his first argument with Chuck when the time came to 'question' Daniel Shaw, because Chuck ordered him to stay out of it, citing that he couldn't be objective because of Hattie and what Shaw had forced her to do. It was only John taking Tom aside and quietly telling him that Chuck had also taken himself out of the process for similar reasons and, in addition, had insisted that _he_ agreed to abide by strict conditions before he allowed him to proceed with the 'questioning' that allowed Tom to reconcile with Chuck over that.

John, Hank and Jerry worked on Shaw and his partner Sullivan until they were both finished (though Sullivan's 'questioning' hadn't been drawn out for anywhere near as long as Shaw's). They went that far for two reasons, the first being that when someone is begging for his very life they are less likely to try and hold anything back unless they have far more strength of character than either of those two did. The second, and possibly more important reason, was to make _damned_ sure that Shaw definitely gone this time.

Once they'd processed Shaw and Sullivan, they moved on to the other nine so called marshals. They were much the same as Sullivan (In all respects, Chuck and Sarah had been reeling, stomachs churning, when they'd seen their faces and heard their names, because they were recalling what they'd done to men, women and children, _especially_ the women and children. They'd struggled to keep it in, both figuratively and literally, as they couldn't risk letting any of those images leak out for fear that their children would see them.) so all together the information extracted from them was barely twice what they'd extracted from Shaw alone, but all in all it was a good harvest, they'd extracted quite a bit of useful information from them.

John gave Chuck and Sarah the transcripts of the 'questioning', and they in turn expanded the names and information that had been extracted from the 'marshals' into a veritable mountain of evidence against corrupt marshals, judges, politicians and doyens of society by way of the memories of hundreds of dead people in their heads.

It took Chuck and Sarah the best part of a week to write up everything they put together from what John, Hank and Jerry had extracted, what with their meetings with Uncle Sam and others, and looking after their children. In this time, Hattie, Ellie and Adele were climbing the walls because John, Mei and Zondra were assisting Tom, Andy and the others with the security arrangements and they'd all sided with Tom, Andy Chuck and Sarah in insisting that Hattie, Ellie and Adele stay well away from any situations that may put them or their babies at risk (much like they'd all sided with Chuck for the same reason back when Sarah was pregnant, which was something that she took a small amount of vindictive pleasure in reminding them of, throwing their own words back at them).

Given that they couldn't be with their husbands or family while they worked (aside from Chuck and Sarah, who were working at the President's House itself), and they had to be careful around Aunt Julia and Nellie, Hattie came up with the idea for them to look into expanding the reference libraries that they'd put together for Coburn House and the hacienda, so they had the law firm send over the lists of what they'd initially put together, and began doing research into what directions that they believed that it would be beneficial to expand the libraries in.

* * *

When they finally got into the courtroom, Chuck and Sarah were proven correct, that they were indeed required to attend. At first, there was a lot of resistance from the ones selected to preside over the trials, and Chuck and Sarah knew that this related more to their own dirty laundry than the traitors', so they talked it over and agreed on taking a big chance in hope of getting those concerns out of the way. They didn't tell anyone else about what they were going to do, so Uncle Sam, the team and everyone else was caught by surprise when Chuck just put the file in his hand down and addressed those presiding directly the next time the proceedings got bogged down by their bickering.

"Gentlemen, this isn't getting us anywhere. Yes, _everyone_ of importance was investigated to determine whether they were involved in this or other conspiracies, but we were _only_ interested in those matters which effect the good of the country. We have no interest in pursuing youthful indiscretions at Columbia, Yale, Harvard, or even West point. So long as it was determined that these indiscretions were isolated incidents which weren't part of any greater conspiracy or on-going illegal practices, we stopped investigating questionable financial dealings that had occurred at a personal, family, or business level."

"Likewise, extra-marital affairs, whether they involved domestic staff, other worthy's daughters or wives were let lie, so long as they were consensual and didn't leave the parties open to blackmail or coercion. Even minor slips in ethics in the practices used to gain anyone's position were ignored as long as they couldn't be used to compromise your integrity."

Chuck subtly made eye contact with the person he was directing each point at to ensure that they understood that he was, in fact, addressing them directly.

"I do not know how to state this any more clearly gentlemen, we _all_ have skeletons in our closets, but so long as they cannot be used to compromise your integrity and/or coerce you into doing anything against the interests of our country, we have no interest in exposing those skeletons for the world to see, or even to your peers."

That gave them all a lot to think about, and the room was quiet when he finished, until one of them cleared his throat. "Colonel Barton, you and your people have obviously done a very thorough job of investigating us, so I expect that you already know that I have made arrangements to ensure that my daughter is properly looked after," (Chuck nodded) "but I think that I, and I believe others as well, would feel more comfortable knowing something of your own skeletons, because… Pardon me for saying this Colonel, but you appear to be something of a saint, and saints tend to make many of us uncomfortable, because they tend to deal in hellfire and brimstone."

Chuck laughed out loud at that as he shook his head. "I can assure you that I am no saint Senator, and my wife, sister and in fact most anyone who knows me can attest to _that_. As for my skeletons… well, I am not Charles Barton from Boston, my _real_ name is Charles Bartowski and I am from New Orleans, but I falsified my name, age and where I was from when I got a job with the Pony Express to get some money together after I ran away to come north and join the fight against slavery before the war against my father's wishes, and I enlisted in the Army with the Charles Barton identity when the war started. My family gave up everything to come north to try and find me during the war, and I believe that some of you may have known my father, Stephen Bartowski, from the Mexican-American War. I've also severely beaten several men for doing or saying things against those I care about. Does that help to give you any degree of comfort Senator?"

The senator stared at him, more than a little shocked that the man had so readily shared these things, as he hadn't really expected any response, and certainly nothing like what he was told. He cleared his throat again and replied "It is Colonel, and I thank you for being so candid and sharing that with us... No, sorry, I _would_ like to ask one more thing if I may?"

Chuck just nodded. "You said that you falsified your age as well, may I ask how old you actually were at Cripple Creek?"

After communicating silently with Sarah and agreeing that they had enough to find out now if they checked anyway, he looked back at the Senator. "I was Sixteen at Cripple Creek Sir."

The shocked silence at that statement prevailed in the courtroom until Chuck spoke again. "I hope that I have managed to convince you gentlemen that the purpose of these proceedings is not a witch hunt directed at any of you, but it is in fact exactly what you have been advised, an attempt to determine how to proceed against those who have been found to be conspiring against our country for their own profit and glory." With that, he picked up the file he'd been holding and went back to his previous point.

Their gambit worked, and those presiding over the hearings were now concentrating on the matters at hand. With the problems out of the way, they proceeded to bring the conspirators into the court room to face the charges against them. Most of the time when those on trial were in the room, Chuck, Sarah, John and the others were hidden behind screens, and only spoke to present evidence to refute the claims being made by those on the stand as a general rule.

* * *

The only exceptions to that rule were when the accused had recognised their voices and started asking questions. John took great delight in confronting his father and brothers' co-conspirators and all but convincing them that he'd returned from the dead. Chuck, Sarah and John did the same to Woody Woodcomb, as Woodcomb had for some reason been convinced that Chuck, Ellie and the rest of them had died when they'd 'disappeared'.

Woodcomb hadn't bothered paying any attention to Sarah or John's names, as his only interest in Sarah had been related to her beauty and what he wanted to do to her and he'd had no interest in noting anything about John at all, so he hadn't reported their names to his Ring associates, he'd only reported that Charles and Eleanor Bartowski, along with another woman and rather large man had attacked him.

The Ring had known nothing of Charles Barton before his and Sarah's first trip to Washington, and their altercations with the ones sent to ambush them, Larkin and his supervisor. Also, when Ellie was added to the team, it was as Eleanor Helsing. It was known that Eleanor Helsing was Charles Barton's older sister, so the Ring had presumed that she was a young war widow. The military records for Charles Barton hadn't been hard to find and they hadn't bothered investigating Ellie any further after they discovered a number of Helsings among the listings of the Union soldiers killed in the war.

There had been nothing to connect either of them to the Bartowskis, so no mention had been made to Woodcomb of them, hence his shock and fear when he heard Chuck's voice in the court room, and then saw him, Sarah and John step out from behind the screen. He'd actually wet his pants, but it didn't take much to make something like Woodcomb do that.

When Woodcomb started calling Chuck Bartowski though, those presiding over the hearing looked at each other, surprised to hear this confirmation of what Colonel Barton had told them from something such as Woodcomb. (There was no way that any of them would have predicted that Woodcomb would have recognised Chuck's voice, because several of them knew the man better than Chuck did, and were well aware that he was normally oblivious to anything other than a pretty face, or a pert behind in a skirt).

It was Chuck's reaction when Woodcomb shouted dire threats of what would happen to his wife and sister when the Ring found them that sealed Woodcomb's fate though. Woodcomb had been a minor player in these conspiracies, so he had been slated to just be stripped of his position and ill gotten gains, and probably incarcerated for a short time as punishment for his actions. When they saw the fear in this hero's (they'd seen sanitised copies of Chuck's and the others' records and had read about why he'd been given the Medal of Honor, which was the senator had asked how old he really was at Cripple Creek) eyes at the threats against his family though, those presiding launched into a heated (whispered) debate, and with almost no dissension they handed down the ruling that Woodcomb would be hung.

Chuck knew why they were doing this and tried to argue against the death penalty for Woodcomb (which only served to enhance their respect for him), but they remained firm on the matter, no word of Charles Bartowski or his wife and sister would be allowed leave the courtroom, and nor would any threats of retribution against his family. They also knew about the Bartons' babies, even though Woodcomb hadn't, and they weren't about to allow any harm to come to them or the women as a result of some pathetic creature's attempt at revenge.

It had been in some ways similar when some of the Louisiana traitors had recognised Alexander Coburn's voice (after Chuck had aired some of his skeletons, Sarah had done the same, telling about pretending to be a man to attend Colombia Law and be admitted to the bar, and John had told them about how Alexander Coburn had 'died' and he'd become John Casey (though he hadn't mentioned being the Confederacy's infamous 'Bear'), and these admissions had made those presiding a lot more comfortable about what they realised these people knew about them). Those men had already been slated to be hung for their part in the conspiracy in Louisiana, but their diatribes expedited the approvals for them to be 'questioned' prior to their deaths.

* * *

These diatribes also brought up the question of the Coburn estates. Sarah thoughtfully reminded John that Alexandra was the only 'legitimate' issue of any of the Coburn family, and that they'd already had all the requisite legal paperwork to that effect officially recognised in a court of law. They could use that to protect both Alexandra's interests and the people of the Coburn plantation by having the plantation and everything else that made up the Coburn estate legally bequeathed to Alexandra Joan Coburn, as the only legitimate daughter of the 'late' Captain Alexander John Coburn, and offering the people of the plantation a stake to run it for her, with Oncle Andre in New Orleans as the nominal manager for the estate.

John was delighted with that proposal, so they requested that the hearings be adjourned for a few days while they went to New York to have Jim Goodman get Tolbert, Ives and Jager to commence proceedings to have ownership of the entire Coburn estate officially bequeathed to Alex.


	8. Finding Family

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and, well you know the rest.**

Things had been easier with the law firm since they had let Jim Goodman in on Sam and Harry's secret (and that Chuck was a legal authority as well but couldn't practice, for various reasons), and had made him a junior partner with the authority to manage the firm when they were away. (Jim had laughed when 'Sam' revealed 'his' real identity, saying that more than a few of them had always wondered about the fact that 'Sam' had never showed any interest in girls, and had put it down to the fact that 'he' actually liked boys, an idea which had only been reinforced by the way that 'Sam' had behaved around the handsome Colonel Barton.)

Now, Sarah and Hattie could go into the offices with their husbands as themselves, and once they were in the partners' office with Jim with the door closed they (and Chuck) could give him his instructions. With Sarah's larger chest because she was nursing and Hattie's belly becoming more obvious, this was the only way things could work at the moment, so it was fortuitous that they could trust Jim with their secrets, well, these ones anyway.

They knew that others would be trying to grab the Coburns' holdings, so they prepared for a fight. One advantage they did have was that Alexander Coburn Senior and his other sons' prejudice had been so strong that they weren't in the habit of taking their slave women all the time like so many others of their ilk did, which meant that John had no need to try to track down and rescue any half brothers or sisters or nieces or nephews from the erstwhile slave population. His father and brothers did however have relations with any _white_ high or low born slatterns who they could charm or force into it. This meant that as the sizeable Coburn estates were now apparently left without anyone with legitimate claims to them, there would be hordes of women coming forward with children whom they claimed to be the get of the Coburns, trying to lay claim to the Coburn fortune.

John was an honourable man, so he would do his best to ensure that any _genuine_ issue of his brothers (or father, for that matter) were looked after, within reason, but he was _not_ about to line the pockets of any slatterns who might have included his father or brothers among the many men that they'd lain with, and saw this as their chance to make a grab at a piece of the Coburn fortune. That was why he'd given Jim Goodman very strict instructions on what they were empowered to agree to.

As soon as they had things set in play at Tolbert, Ives and Jager, John took a detail of a dozen men (under Bill's command) and headed down to the plantation. While John was welcomed by those who had been on the plantation before he went off to West point, a number of his father's associates were on the plantation when he arrived and they attacked him the moment that they saw him, because they realised that their plans to fabricate the documentation that would let them grab the Coburn estate for themselves would be destroyed by the appearance of a legitimate heir, but they were no match for John, Bill and the others, and they were quickly killed.

When the dust settled, the only people who were left were the staff, both black and white, who'd rejoiced to see young Master Alex, the mistress's little 'Johnny', return to the plantation (he had avoided anyone who might recognise him when he came with the Cavalry troop after Chuck and Sarah dealt with his father and brothers, to keep the surprise of his being alive to use when it would do them the most good). John explained to them what was going on, and what they hoped to do.

They quietly got rid of the bodies, and John left Bill and the others there (with one of Chuck's clockwork Gatling guns) to hold the plantation against anyone who tried to take it by force until Alexandra's case for the estate was won in court and legal notices had gone out to all and sundry while he went back to Washington for the rest of the hearings.

While Alexandra's case for the Coburn estate was accepted in court and the entire estate was bequeathed to her within the month, they were still fighting demands for money from women who claimed to be the mothers of children that his father and brothers had fathered for years after that. The majority of these claims had been quickly and easily thrown out as soon as the real fathers were identified (more than a few of whom had in fact already been recognised and admitted to be the fathers several years before), but the remainder required careful investigation into the validity of their claims.

For the very few children where the claims of Coburn parentage were ruled to be legitimate, John's instructions were quite firm, the Coburn estate would pay for them to receive a decent education (within reason, and only where there was specific prior approval from the estate's managers), and afterwards it would _consider_ providing some assistance to help them set up a modest business (their first one only, and only the startup costs at that) in order for them to provide for themselves so they didn't starve, but no money _whatsoever_ was to go to any of the mothers.

This position led to some infamous court battles, not a few of which erupted in violence, but the most infamous by far was the one where the mother, a divorced woman from a once prominent southern family who'd been forced to revert to her last dead husband's name after being divorced by her husband, had stridently shrieked "What about me? The boy is getting this pittance, but I'm receiving nothing! I deserve to get what I'm due!" in the courtroom.

The lawyer representing the Coburn estate in that particular case had stood and walked across to the plaintiff's table, pulling out his wallet as he did so. When he reached the table, he'd extracted what he had in his wallet, around $600 or so, and dropped it onto the table in front of her before turning and returning to his own table without a word.

When they'd managed to quieten down the courtroom, the judge had asked him to explain his actions. Knowing what he was about to say would cause outrage, he'd requested permission to approach the bench, but the opposing lawyer demanded that they hear this. The judge had an inkling of how this would go, so he indicated that both lawyers should approach the bench.

The estate's lawyer quietly explained. "Our firm is acting under strict instructions from our client, the Coburn estate, that no woman is to be allowed to profit from, or receive _any_ payment for, having sex with Alexander, Roger or Phillip Coburn your honour. However Missus Kennedy appeared to be so distraught about the fact that she was getting nothing that my heart went out to her, so I gave her what I could out of my own pocket."

The judge's eyes were dancing with mirth at this, as everyone knew about this woman and her ways, so calling her a whore outright wouldn't be entirely out of line in his view, but he managed to keep a straight face. The opposing lawyer, however, wasn't at all amused and stridently asked. "Are you saying, Sir, that the money you just placed on the table was in fact payment to my client for having sex with Roger Coburn?"

The lawyer looked him in the eye and replied, no longer making any effort to keep his voice down.

"Your client demanded to be paid what she was due, I have no idea what Missus Kennedy or others of her profession would normally receive for what she did under these circumstances, so I was trying to be generous!"

The courtroom erupted at that, and numerous shots were fired (by the woman's other beaux and liaisons, it was later established), but luckily, while a number of people were hit, including Mrs Kennedy's lawyer and some of the court staff, no-one was killed or seriously injured. It _was_ noted (and reported in the dailies) that Mrs Kennedy had taken the money and stuffed it into her purse before she left the courtroom.

The judge quickly wrapped up after that, ruling that the estate would pay for Anthony Kennedy's education, but only where the costs had had prior approval from the estate, and that consideration would be given by the estate in regard to investing in setting Anthony Kennedy up in a concern sufficient to support a modest lifestyle once he'd finished his education. The decision of how much (if any) to invest would reside _purely_ at the estate's discretion. With that, everyone was cleared from the court. Needless to say, John repaid the lawyer the money he'd given Mrs Kennedy, with a few hundred more for the entertainment he'd provided.

They were tied up in Washington for over two months with the conspiracy trials, and Chuck, Sarah and Joseph (Chuck and Sarah had fun, making a point of calling him Commodore Paterson in front of the Navy's flag officers because many of them didn't like it) also had to present evidence in the Navy proceedings that arose from their reports on the various ships' officers. John, Chuck and Sarah _also_ had to present evidence in the proceedings that arose from the investigation into the widespread corruption within the United States Marshals service, so they were beginning to wonder whether they'd ever get home.

Ellie and Hattie ended up going to Farmington to spend time with Kathleen and Alex for a few weeks, as they were tired of sitting around while everyone else was busy. Andy's mother came over to spend time with her daughter-in-law and her increasingly obvious grandchild-to-be (both Ellie and Hattie were more than halfway through their pregnancies by then), and Hattie's Aunt Carina had managed to get her mother out of New York on the pretext of taking her to Boston for a week or two, so they were in Farmington as well.

All in all, this was a pleasant interlude for Ellie and Hattie, though Farmington took a while to recover from the two pregnant women tearing about town in the Coburn's Tilbury gig (with men following them on the Coburn's other horses).

Eventually the trials concluded, and after being 'questioned' for more information about the conspiracies, a good number of the conspirators were quietly hung. The rest of them who were still in Washington went to Farmington as soon as they were released. Kathleen and Alex derived considerable fun from promoting a little friendly rivalry between Lou, Adele, Albert and Elijah but it was all in fun, and as expected, they'd all gotten along famously (so much so that Lou and Albert were disappointed to hear that Adele and Elijah would be out at the hacienda rather than next door in Los Angeles, but they were assured that they'd all see a lot of each other when they moved to California).

Joseph also enjoyed being able to spend time talking with Hattie's mother and Aunt Carina, as they hadn't had the opportunity to do so before. He made a few suggestions as Hattie, Tom and Carina were making their plans to convince Hattie's father to agree to her mother taking a trip with her sister Carina to see the marvellous Yellowstone Park that they'd heard so much about from their friends and other sights in California in a couple of months.

Andy's mother was crying a little as she listened to the other grandparents making plans to be there for the birth of their grandchild. She'd been trying to be discreet, but Carina had seen her crying and suddenly said in a louder voice. "Come now Maggie, it's not like the Miller girls are slipping off to do something untoward, there's a whole group of us from the old school going…. like Lizzie, you remember Lizzie from school? She's Missus Dent nowadays..."

They all stopped and looked at Elizabeth, and Margaret looked stricken as she rushed to her.

"I'm so sorry Dear, we were so caught up with making our plans that we didn't think of you, but you will come too won't you? You _MUST_ come!"

Elizabeth stopped trying to cover it up then and burst into tears. "I couldn't! There's no way that I could convince Harold to let me go!"

Carina snickered. "Don't you realise who you're dealing with here Elizabeth?"

She started pointing at people around the room. "Spy, spy, spy, spy, spy, spy, spy, and Andy, Tommy, and the rest of their boys are as good as spies as well."

The others were staring at her, and she laughed at the shocked expression on Hattie's face. "What? You didn't think that your Uncle Roan could keep quiet in bed, did you Sweetie? And not just when he was talking in his sleep either!"

At that, the determined looks that both Hattie and Sarah got on their faces said that they'd be having some serious 'discussions' with the Chief of the Secret Service as soon as they got to Washington, but Hattie went to Elizabeth and sat beside her, taking her hands.

"My aunt shouldn't know about that, but she's right Missus Dent. You're in a house full of spies and if you want this we can make it happen! You _do_ want this, don't you?"

Elizabeth smiled through her tears. "Oh yes, more than anything!"

Hattie smiled as she embraced her and kissed her on the cheek. "Then you are coming to California!"

"Now, I'm not sure how far apart we're due" (Ellie cut in with 'two or three weeks!' and Hattie shared a smile with Elizabeth) "but the trip will be for at least a month or month and a half, maybe longer. The core of the story will be basically what Aunt Carina said, that you went to school with Margaret" (indicating her mother) "and Carina" (indicating her aunt) "Miller, and you've been catching up with them over the past six months or so whenever they come up to see family who have moved up here." (Waving to Kathleen and Alex.)

"A group of the women that you all went to school with are doing a trip together to take in the wonderful Yellowstone Park and other sights in California, as we said, and those stubborn Miller sisters won't let you to beg out of coming along. My Aunt Carina has a lot more money than sense, so she's paying for the trip." When Carina went to say something at that Hattie cut her off.

"I _should_ make you pay for talking about things that you shouldn't but don't worry, we'll pay?" She looked hopefully at Sarah and asked. "Won't we?"

Sarah smiled and nodded, saying. "Of course!"

They were sorting out the details when Alex piped up in a small voice, asking. "What about us?"

Everyone looked at John who groaned, asking Kathleen. "Isn't she supposed to be in school then Kath?"

Kathleen nodded regretfully "I believe so, as I recall she's supposed to be going back around that time."

They both turned to look at Alex who was trying to put in a brave face through her tears, and John said "I'm sorry Sweetie, but your education is important, and you have already lost two months' school when you came over for the birth of Aunt Sarah's babies." she nodded, trying not to sniffle as she said. "I understand Papa, but will we get to see the babies?"

Ellie went to her and put her arms around her. "Of course you will Sweetie! We'll be bringing their grandmothers back after the babies are born, and we have other people over here who'll be anxious to see them too, but you'll be our first stop, I promise!"

Alex threw her arms around her and buried her face in her blouse, muffling her. "I love you Aunt Ellie!"

Ellie smiled and kissed her on the head, whispering. "I love you too, Alex!"

When Alex had settled down, Ellie went to embrace her mother-in-law, nudging her husband out of the way none too gently, which told him that he was in trouble for failing to think of his mother's feelings and make the plans for her to come earlier. Andy was too sensible to even think of bringing up the fact that she was guilty of failing to do so herself.

They delivered Margaret safely home in new York on their way back to Washington, and when they arrived Sarah and Hattie told the others to wait while they went for a quick word with 'Uncle Roan'. They didn't try to argue when their husbands and 'Uncle John' came along, with a protection detail.

They also weren't surprised when Zondra elected to stay with Ben, because something had been 'off' with him since he'd 'questioned' Judge Turpin, for that matter he hadn't been himself ever since he'd seen the man's name. Chuck was kicking himself for letting Ben question Turpin, but he'd seen the great need in him when he'd pleaded for this chance so Chuck had agreed, hoping that Ben would find the peace that he so desperately needed, but whatever he'd learned from Turpin had only made him worse.

Chuck, Tom, John and the others stayed in the outer office to prevent anyone from interceding. They were certain (well…. hopeful) that Sarah and Hattie wouldn't kill or seriously injure their boss, Hattie's mentor, and that they only wanted to stress to him how he had jeopardised their operation about discussing them with Hattie's Aunt Carina, and determine whether he'd told any other women.

The men struggled to keep their faces calm as they heard the shouting and crashing through the door behind them, bolstered by the fact that they weren't hearing screams of pain, well not too many anyway, and they weren't the screams of someone who was mortally wounded.

They were still relieved when the door opened behind them and Roan was standing there with the women, none the worse for wear, well not much anyway. He was there to apologise. "Colonel Barton, Charles, I must apologise for my lapse of judgement with Harriet's aunt. In my defence, I had thought that she'd already known about that aspect of Harriet's life, and that Harriet had discussed the rest of you to her, but obviously Harriet was more of a professional in that respect than I. Harriet's relationship with her aunt is nothing like mine, but the fact remains that I should not have discussed what I did with her. Your lovely wife has concerns about me discussing your situation with other women as well as Carina, but I can assure you that I have not, my only lapse was with Carina. Can you forgive me for being a foolish old man?"

Chuck looked at Sarah and she communicated that she was prepared to let Roan off the hook with that (though the expression on Hattie's face showed that she didn't share that view), so Chuck nodded. "Yes, Mr Montgomery, we can let it go at that, so long as you can assure us that it will not happen again."

"Oh yes, I promise that I will not make _that_ mistake again!"

At that, a snarky comment came from Hattie. "You know as well as we do that the only way you can make _that_ promise is if you stay out of my aunt's bed from now on! Are you prepared to do that _U_ _ncle_ Roan?"

He turned an affronted look on her. "No and no my girl, I've learned my lesson about presuming that the people in your life already knew your secrets, and I won't be discussing anything about you" ('any of you' he added as he glanced at the others) "but I' will _not_ stop seeing your aunt! We've been close since you were a babe Harriet and I am not prepared to give that up!"

Sarah stepped up to him, poking him in the chest forcefully enough to leave a bruise as she hissed quietly to him. "Just remember, _U_ _ncle_ Roan, that if we hear that there's been any more talk, we _will_ be back to ensure that you can't talk in bed any more! I just haven't decided what to remove to ensure that, your tongue, or something else!"

Roan went white, but to his credit he nodded calmly and said. "I accept that if I were to err again, I would probably deserve that Sarah."

That earned him a smile from Sarah, and she nodded and kissed him on the cheek before taking Chuck's arm and departing. Hattie also went to kiss him on the cheek, whispering. "I do love you Uncle Roan, but _don't_ slip up again, this was your first and last warning!"

Roan nodded, then shook Tom's offered hand, getting a sympathetic look from him.

Back at the train, Ben took Tom aside and requested permission for a leave of absence. Tom shook his head, saying "This has gone on long enough!" and told Ben to sit down as he sent someone to get Chuck, Sarah and John.

When they arrived, everyone else was cleared from the car and Ben told to ' _ **Talk!**_ '

Ben's story went back to the late fifties, when he and his beautiful bride were both teenagers. The reason that they were married when they were only sixteen was that they'd taken fooling around too far and Lucy had gotten herself pregnant. Aside from the (justified, he had to admit) thrashing that he'd gotten from Lucy's father when he found out what Ben had done to his little girl, that had been a happy time. Their families had thrown in to set them in a nice little house in town, and for all his youth the stagecoach company Ben worked for was moving him up quickly, because he was great with horses and showed a talent for managing the business of the day more effectively and efficiently than most men twice his age.

When the day came, Lucy gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, who they called Johanna, and the two Barker girls were the darlings of the town. Many men gave Lucy the eye because of her beauty, but most of them left her alone out of respect for the fact that she was a wife and mother. There was one who didn't though. They had a new judge in town, Judge Turpin, who believed that he had the right to take whatever he wanted, and he wanted Lucy! Judge Turpin persisted in making advances at Lucy, no matter how many times she rebuffed them.

While the town folk were trying to get the authorities to come in from the territory's capital to do something about what was going on though (because the town sheriff was in Turpin's pocket), Benjamin Barker was arrested for stabbing a man to death.

None of the town folk believed that Ben had had anything to do this crime, and the fact that the so-called 'witness' to the crime had been Turpin's shadow, Beadle Bamford (a vile creature in his own right) was further proof that Turpin was behind it. Turpin's sheriff refused to do anything when everyone came to him to tell him that Ben couldn't have done this because a number of people had seen him elsewhere at the time that that man had been stabbed and were willing to testify to the fact.

Turpin's plan had obviously been to quickly sentence Ben to hang for murder, thus leaving the way clear to Lucy, but it was obvious that the town folk would have risen up to crush him and his bought men if he'd sentenced did and he didn't have enough men in his pocket yet to stop the whole town, so he remitted Ben's sentence to imprisonment. They accepted that, as it gave them the chance to get the proper authorities to look into the matter, hold a _real_ trial and get Ben freed.

When Ben went off to prison though, it wasn't to where Turpin had told the town he was being sent. The hard labour camp down in the swamps of Louisiana that Ben was actually sent to (under a different name to ensure that he would never be found) was as good as a death sentence, because no-one ever came out of it alive, and very few lasted more than a few months there either.

The next part of the story came from what Ben had been told by Lucy's father when he'd gone back to the town as soon as the war finished. Apparently, as soon as Ben was out of the picture Turpin had redoubled his pursuit of Lucy, but she still rebuffed all of his advances. One night, he'd forced his way into her house (she'd insisted on staying in their house, determined that she and their daughter would be waiting for him there when he returned), and when she refused him yet again, he'd raped her.

It appeared that Lucy had grabbed a knife to defend herself with when she fought her way free, but in the scuffle that ensued, _she_ was unfortunately the one who was killed. This was what the townfolk had pieced together when they'd found her partially dressed body in her house the next morning.

They immediately went looking for Turpin, but found that he and Bamford had disappeared with baby Joanna, and no-one in the town saw them again. The local sheriff had flat refused to go after them, and by the time the town folk could get the sheriff in another town to petition the authorities to try and find them, the trail had gone cold. Turpin's sheriff also refuted everything the town folk were saying and the authorities believed him (as the local representative of the law), so they ruled that there was there was no evidence that Turpin had raped and murdered Lucy _or_ taken Johanna, so nothing was done about finding them.

While this was going on, unbeknownst to Ben, his determination to get back to his wife and daughter was what gave him the drive to survive in that hell hole of a prison until after the war started. When Butler's army came through Louisiana, the ones running the prison camp had fled, and the prisoners had to choose between joining the Union Army, and being shot where they stood. Ben took the Army, as that was the only way to live to get back to Lucy and Johanna. When he was selected to be part of the escort for an urgent shipment of goods to the war effort up north, his talent with horses had caught Colonel Saunders' eye, so the Colonel had used his pull with the general officers to get him transferred into the 2nd Cavalry.

When the war _finally_ finished over three years after he'd swapped the prison for the Army, Ben mustered out of the Army as quick as he could and rushed home to see his wife and daughter, only to find that Turpin had raped and murdered Lucy, and then took Johanna and disappeared. He'd spent months trying to find some sign of where his daughter had been taken to, but he eventually gave up, heartbroken, and went back to rejoin the Army, as he had nothing left to live for. When Tom got word that Ben was trying to get back into the Army, he got Uncle Sam to have him reinstated at his final rank and added to the troop.

That was the way things had continued until they'd escorted their prisoners to Washington, and he saw Turpin's name in the paperwork of what they were dealing with.

Chuck asked a question at that point. "Did you manage to get anything about your daughter out of him, did you find out where she is?"

Ben looked despondent. "All Turpin would tell me was that he made her his ward and kept her with him ever since he took her away that night. He enjoyed taunting me about the fact that she's growing into the very image of her mother, every bit the beauty that Lucy was, and how as soon as she's of age he was going to take her as his bride. He laughed as he said that he was going to have Johanna like he wanted to have her mother, and I was so enraged that I killed him."

He covered his face as he kept talking. "I didn't manage to get where she was out of him before I killed him, only that he had that Bamford creature watching her, so I have lost my daughter _again_ , because I couldn't control my damned temper!"

He began to cry at that point and Sarah went to him, putting her arms around him and trying to comfort him. Her's weren't the only ones besides Ben's that were wet at that point, they _all_ had tears in their eyes.

John growled. "Damnit Ben, why didn't you tell us about this? We would have made sure that we extracted her location from him!"

Chuck cut him off and brusquely told him to get out as he wasn't helping, then he knelt in front of Ben and made him look at him, saying.

"We will find her Ben! You know damned well that we're the best in the country, and I assure you that we won't stop until you have your daughter back in your arms!"

With that he stood, telling Sarah and Tom to look after Ben and left. Outside, he grabbed John and Hank told them they were coming with him. Andy saw the three of them stalking away and hurriedly sent a protective detail after them.

 **A/N: Yes, if anyone's interested, Mrs Kennedy** _ **is**_ **Scarlett O'Hara ;) In this version Rhett** **Butler** **divorced the tart** **after** **their daughter died and he found that she was carrying someone else's child.** **I just watched it for period research, really! (Just like you guys read** _ **THOSE**_ **magazines for the articles, right? ;)**

 **I was actually surprised to see what a wanton she was.** **T** **hat's my version** **anyway** **, and if'n you don't believe me, well….** **Fr** **ankly my dear, I don't give a damn! ;)** **(And I** _ **do**_ **know that that quote's inaccurate, so don't bother correcting me :o)**


	9. Prodigal Daughter

**The nod to Sweeney Todd came out of trying to find some dodgy judges' names for the last chapter, and recalling the story and having a Ben in the 'family' when I came up with Turpin, it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. Judge Frollo was from Hunchback, but it was too difficult to work in anything from that ;^)**

 **Warning, Zondra's back story here is dark and nasty.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

When they came back an hour and a half later, the men who went with them had a rousing tale to tell of how the Colonels and the Sergeant Major had walked straight into the headquarters of the United States Marshals Service and proceeded to turn it upside down until they had the information that they were after. They sheepishly reported that there were definitely more than a few broken Marshals, and perhaps a few dead ones as well, back at their headquarters.

They had stopped at the Army stables on the way back, so they had two dozen Army mounts with them. Tom and Andy were brusquely told to stay with their wives, the babies and Adele, and the best of the rest from Cripple Creek took what horses were left after Chuck, Sarah, John, Mei, Ben and Zondra made their choices. The rest of the team had heard by now what this was about and their only priority was to get Ben's daughter back so there was no bickering, they knew who the best were and they all agreed that only their best were the men for this.

The house that Turpin maintained for his retinue and spent most of his time at was in a small town just outside of Washington, and at the pace they were riding, it didn't take them long to get there. They left the horses with a few of the men out of sight of the house as they slipped through the town like ghosts. This stealthy approach finished when they reached the house though, because John showed those few who didn't already know why he was the Bear by taking off the front door with one kick and they all rushed in.

Aside from Turpin's creature Bamford, no-one in that house had any love for Turpin, so the others freely told where the girl's room was when asked. Sarah stopped Ben when he went to rush to his daughter though, pointing out that having some strange man bursting into her room would terrify her. While he resisted at first, once he'd calmed down enough to think he accepted that it _would_ be better for Johanna if it were Sarah, Zondra and Mei who went to her, so he capitulated. Zondra kissed him on the cheek and whispered that Johanna would be with him soon before she followed the others upstairs. Ben looked after them for a moment and then turned to Bamford, as he had something else to do.

Bamford squeaked like a rat when he realised that the man heading for him with murder in his eyes was Ben Barker, because he was supposed to be dead! The judge had been assured that Barker wouldn't last a month in that prison camp! He still had faith in the judge's indomitable power and authority though, so he tried to put on a good show of false bravado as he huffed.

"You better be gone before Judge Turpin gets here if you want to live Barker! You won't have anyone to save you from the rope this time!"

Ben's grim chuckle almost made Bamford piss his pants. "Your master was labouring under the same delusion Bamford, that should give you something to talk about when you join him!"

At that, Ben suddenly grabbed Bamford's head in a vice like grip, forcing him to meet his eye.

"Were you there that night Rat? Did you watch as your master raped and killed my wife?"

Bamford _was_ pissing himself now, and he squeaked. "I don't know what you're talking about, nothing like that happened!"

Ben had a murderous glint in his eye as he asked. "Then how was it that my daughter disappeared with the two of you the very night that my Lucy was raped and killed?"

"We…. I mean Judge Turpin went to the house to try and talk sense into Miss Lucy, because she'd been behaving very badly since you left her and the babe, laying with half the men in town," (he was obviously repeating the story that they'd been telling Johanna over, and over again, as he was too feeble minded and frightened to think up anything different) "but he found her dead, because whoever the last man she'd had that night must have killed her over the money or something. He couldn't leave the babe to the mercies of the types that her mother was associating with, so he took her with us to look after her and give her a proper upbringing when we left that terrible town."

Ben was beyond words now, knowing full well that his daughter had been told these foul lies most of her life, that he'd abandoned her and her mother when she was a babe, and that her mother was just some harlot who'd been killed by one of the many men she laid with, so the great Judge Turpin had taken her in and looked after her out of pity.

He stared deep into Bamford's eyes, all but foaming at the mouth as he shook with rage, and his grip tightened on Bamford's head until the others in the room started to hear the sounds of bone cracking. Ben never broke gaze with the creature once, even though Bamford was shrieking like a banshee and thrashing about wildly.

The others did nothing to stop Ben, they just looked on in horror. Their horror wasn't directed at Ben's actions though, it was that anyone could be so evil as to create such a story about a child's parents and keep telling it to her over and over to try and make her believe it.

When Bamford had finally stopped thrashing about, Chuck and Hank gently prised Ben's hands off his crushed skull and led him away to wash the blood from them. John told the men to get rid of the body while Ben was out of the room.

* * *

Upstairs, Sarah, Mei and Zondra had been in the midst of telling Johanna what they understood to be the true story of what had happened to her parents when they heard the unholy shrieks coming from downstairs and realised what was happening.

Johanna looked at the door and calmly stated. "That was Mr Bamford."

Sarah nodded. "I believe so, yes." She was more than a little surprised by the way that Johanna merely nodded, calmly accepting this.

She shared a look with Mei and Zondra and then looked back at Johanna. "Would you like to find out what happened downstairs, or do you want to hear the rest of the story?"

Johanna shook her head. "Tell me the story please. It is like a fairytale, to hear that I actually did have the loving parents and family who cared about me that I have always dreamed of, after the horrible stories that I have been told all my life."

Sarah, Mei and Zondra had tears in their eyes as they went on, recounting everything that they'd heard from Ben. When they finished the story, Sarah said. "Your father was told that you are the very image of your mother and she in turn apparently took after _her_ mother Johanna, so I doubt that you will have trouble recognising your grandmother when you meet her. Your father has kept in touch with your grandparents since he saw them after the war and both of your grandmothers are still alive, though your father's father died in the war. And it is my understanding that if you cannot accept what your grandparents tell you about your parents and what really happened as the truth, you'll have a whole town full of people that you can ask."

She looked away briefly and then looked back at Johanna. "I was talking to your father while my husband went to find out where you were being kept, and he wishes to leave the choice of whether you stay with your grandparents or come with him up to you. I can assure you that he, and all of us, would love to have you with us, but I am equally sure that your grandparents would love to have you, especially your mother's parents."

Zondra was looking conflicted, but she suddenly came to a decision and blurted out. "Johanna. I want you know that I love your father with all my heart," (she ignored the shocked expressions on Sarah and Mei's faces at that announcement) "but if there isn't room for both of us in his life I will leave. You and your father have been kept away from each other for far too long and I will _not_ get in the way of you having the family that you deserve!"

Sarah was still looking a little stunned when she spoke again. "Johanna, there's something else that you should know about your father, he has never forgotten your mother! The men who have known him since the war have told us that Zondra is the first woman that he's opened up to in all the time that they've known him. So please don't think that your mother was just another woman to him, she was the world to him."

Johanna had tears in her eyes as she whispered "Thank you" to Sarah, and then she turned to Zondra.

"I'm sorry, I do not know what to call you yet, but I do not want you to leave. If I come to live with my father, I want him to have both of us. Otherwise….. I will stay with my grandparents."

She waved her hand at Sarah. "Miss Sarah has said how rare it is for my father to find someone to truly care for, so if he has a chance at being as happy with you as I have been told that he was with my mother, I will _not_ take that away from him."

Zondra went to her and they embraced each other, tears streaming down their faces. When they'd both recovered enough, Sarah asked gently. "Are you ready to see your father now Johanna?"

Johanna couldn't speak so she just nodded, and as she stood, extended her hand to Zondra so that they were hand in hand until they reached the stairs (the stairs were too narrow to go two abreast, so Zondra nudged Johanna to go ahead of her).

When Johanna reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Ben looking at her with love, pain and tears in his eyes, there was no question that this was her father, and she ran to him. As they embraced, Ben was trying to apologise for not being there for her and she was trying to tell him that he was what she'd been missing all her life.

When they ran out of things to say, Johanna turned to reach her hand out to Zondra, drawing her into the embrace that she still shared with her father when Zondra joined them.

There wasn't a dry eye in the room as they watched this, whether they be grizzled warriors or the downtrodden domestic staff of the house.

Everyone in that house (other than Turpin and his creature Bamford) had loved the lovely child who grew up in their household but they'd been too afraid of Turpin to try and do anything to help her escape, especially after they saw what had happened to the few brave souls among them who _had_ tried. That made this a truly joyous occasion for them, doubly so knowing that the judge and his creature were both dead by the hand of Johanna's father.

As they watched Ben being reunited with his daughter, Sarah shared the images of what had transpired upstairs with Chuck, and his expression as he watched the family embracing in front of him was both heart warmed and shocked. They were _all_ going to be shocked to hear that Zondra had admitted out loud to loving Ben with all of her heart. It had been obvious to anyone who saw them that they loved each other, but those who knew Zondra would have sworn that she'd _never_ utter those words! The fact that the two women in Ben's life had both been willing to step aside if that was what it took for him to be happy also spoke wonders about how much they loved him.

While all this was going on, some of the troopers had gone out to harness some of the army mounts to Judge Turpin's carriage and Weed, Sarah and Mei went upstairs with some of the household staff and troopers to pack up Johanna's things and cart them down to the carriage. When they were done, and Johanna had gone through the house to ensure that she had everything that she wanted to take with her and said goodbye to the people who'd looked after her all her life, she climbed into the carriage with Ben and Zondra and they headed off to Washington.

* * *

As luck would have it, the town where Johanna's grandparents lived was now a water stop on the railroad, so they could take the train straight there. All they had to do was book the stop at Todd River, rearrange the sleeping arrangements (Ben took a bunk in the open section while Johanna shared their drawing room with Zondra), and off they went.

Johanna was delighted with Chuck and Sarah's babies, as she'd hardly had any chance to spend time with anyone, let alone children or babies, while she'd been Judge Turpin's captive. One time when Johanna was off with the babies and Ben was occupied with his duties, Sarah had a chance to get Zondra alone.

"So, you love Ben with all your heart?"

Zondra closed her eyes in exasperation, then turned on her. " _What?_ I _do_ have a heart you know, and Ben's a good man, a wonderful man!"

Sarah grinned at her. "Oh, I know that quite well, but I just wasn't aware that _you_ had realised it!"

Zondra gritted her teeth in frustration. "This is your fault! Your's and Chuck's! You'd already corrupted Carina, I mean Hattie, before I even arrived and now you've corrupted me as well! How many times were we told 'spies don't fall in love', or 'you can't afford to let your guard down'? So we go along, following the rules and doing our jobs, then we see you all happy with your _husband_ , goddamnit! You make us think that there's something else, something better, available to us and you introduce us to these wonderful men, far better than any we've ever met before in our lives, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down! I used to be a good spy, a _damned_ good spy, but now I'm reduced to a lovesick fool! You did this to me!"

Sarah looked at her, her mirth gone as she hissed. "Do you honestly believe that you're _less_ than you were before? Have you actually looked at what we've achieved, what _you've_ achieved, since you've joined us and became a lovesick fool, as you call yourself? We are _THE_ best team that this country has, we achieve things that no-one else can, and not one of us is any less than we were before, we are more!"

Zondra tapped her finger to her temple. "Are you forgetting what it is that makes _us_ so special?"

Sarah glared at her. "If you'd bothered to actually look at what we've done, you would have seen that _that_ is only a small part of what we do, and why we, this team, are so great. If you'd _bothered_ to look, you'd see that we, _all_ of us, have excelled in every area of this game."

With that she stormed out of the compartment, leaving the door open. Moments later, Hattie slipped in. Looking at Zondra, she started in on her hotly.

"You really are an idiot, you know? You owe her" (pointing out the door where Sarah had gone) "an apology, along with everyone else who had to listen to that pile of shit you just came out with, loud enough for the whole car to hear by the way! I'm just glad that Johanna was in the other car with the babies. So you're scared that you've admitted out loud that you love Ben…. about fucking time by the way, but that _doesn't_ give you the right to lash out at the people who love you! Everything you just said was unmitigated horse shit and if you didn't have your head so far up your arse you'd see that. As Sarah _tried_ to make you see, you've been _better_ since you joined us, and you've achieved far more than the old you ever could. If you refuse to see that, and can't stop taking your frustrations out on others, then maybe you should leave!"

With that she turned and stormed out, not quite as angrily as Sarah had, but angrily nonetheless. Zondra was left crying by herself for a while after that, and the next person she saw was Ben. "Do you want to shout at me too?"

He shook his head. "No, of course not, but you _do_ know that you're wrong, don't you?"

She nodded miserably, and he pulled her into his arms as she cried. When she felt up to facing Sarah, Zondra went to apologise, as she knew that Hattie was right, she owed Sarah, everybody, an apology for what she'd said.

Her apology didn't immediately make everything right, as things remained brittle for a while (even though her apologies were accepted genuinely), but things were on the mend by the time they arrived in Ben and Johanna's home town.

When they saw Johanna, half the people in the town just froze in shock, because Turpin had told the truth on one point, she was the very image of Lucy, her mother. As soon as they'd recovered, people ran to her grandparents' house to tell her grandmother that Johanna was back (some of them were still so shocked that they actually said Lucy)! Her grandmother came running immediately, but she stumbled to a halt at the sight of her, Johanna did the same because Sarah had been right, there was no question that this was her grandmother! Johanna only stopped for a moment though, and then she ran to embrace her.

Others had run off to where her grandfather was working, and to the house of her other grandmother so it wasn't too long before the town's main street was one big family reunion. Lucy's parents and his mother were in tears as they thanked Ben for rescuing Johanna and bringing a part of Lucy back to them. Half of the town were in tears for that matter, overwhelmed at having their beloved Lucy's daughter come back to them.

They spent a couple of days there before they proceeded on to California with Johanna (Ben was delighted to accept her ultimatum that she would only come if there was room in his heart for both her and Zondra). There were tears to see her (and Ben) go, but everyone knew that they would be OK now, and that they'd see them again, so these were in part at least tears of happiness. Lucy's parents managed to make Zondra break down when they told her how happy they were that Ben had finally found another woman worthy of him, and that Johanna would have someone as wonderful as her to look after her and lead her through life.

When the train reached Oakland, Johanna's reaction to the Memphis Belle was much the same as everyone else's. She didn't know anything about ships, but the Belle was nothing like any ship she'd ever seen in pictures.

* * *

Everyone at the hacienda was relieved and happy to see them return, especially the babies and the mothers to be, as they'd been worried about them, out in the world full of dangers, but none more so than Scottie, as he hadn't enjoyed being the one in charge for the last few months, even with the Belle's other officers there to help out.

Once everyone was welcomed back, and Johanna had been welcomed into the family, they sat down with Scottie to discuss what had happened while they were gone. In general, things had gone OK, it was mainly that Scottie hadn't enjoyed being in charge. Beatrice and Anna had moved back to the hacienda and George and his wife had taken over Casa Memphis with some of the crew to handle dealings with the outside world.

One thing that Scottie did bring up was that Anna and a few of the crew had taken over the girls' training, and that they were getting to be incredibly good at fighting. Chuck and Sarah had a silent conversation about this, and they agreed that it was probably much the same as it had been with Adele (and Zondra). After what those girls had been put through in those brothels, most of them were determined to make sure that men would _never_ do those things to them again, so they'd thrown themselves into the training with a determination that others who hadn't been subjected to the type of things they had (including Anna) couldn't match. They had pushed themselves until any one of them was more than a match for any ordinary men that they may come up against in every respect of their training. Whatever the reason, Chuck and Sarah heartily approved of anything that helped the girls feel safer and protect themselves better, as they knew better than most about the night terrors that many of these girls were going through on almost a nightly basis, because they and Adele were comforting more than a few of them most nights (Sarah had extended the same offers of comfort as they'd given Adele to the girls who were suffering).

The girls had a great time setting up Johanna's room in Ben's house, and Johanna was having the time of her life, having a family, and so many other girls around her age group to spend time with. Not to mention laughter, as there'd been precious little laughter, happiness or caring in her life before this. Looking around, she felt as though everything good in her life had started the night her father had come back into her life, and at the same time, everything bad, the fear, the uneasiness whenever the judge or Mr Bamford were around (and the way she'd always felt that she was being watched in that house) had disappeared.

The whole environment here was marvellous, she had all these wonderful people to talk to, and she was allowed to talk to anyone and go anywhere (though they did require her to have someone with her when she was walking around the estate, for protection against snakes, dogs, mountain lions and the like). What's more, there were Chinese, Mexican, black, white and other people all over, she could never have imagined such a mix of people.

The hardest part was that Sarah, Ellie, Hattie, Chuck and her father and Zondra all insisted that she work at getting a proper education, and Ellie or Hattie was supervising her education in the library and reading room much of the time, but she didn't mind in the least, as it was marvellous to be learning about all the things that had been withheld from her before. They were also teaching her a number of languages, _and_ letting her join in with the other girls' (the 'Dragons') training. It felt as though she was being encouraged to do everything that she'd been forbidden to do before, and she was being shown the world for the first time.

* * *

Ellie, Hattie and Adele were over two thirds of the way through their pregnancies now, so they were starting to slow down, and Ellie and Hattie thanked God that they were only a fraction of the size that Sarah had been by this stage, which they hoped meant that they'd only be having one baby each. This in turn meant that Andy and Tom were probably safe from the damage promised to them by the mothers-to-be if they had to go through anything like what Sarah had.

Ellie and Hattie's expectations for their babies were also a lot less than Sarah's babies. They knew now that the unnatural growth and development of Sarah's and Chuck's babies was to a large part due to the Daemons' legacies, as at nearly eight months old, their babies could talk quite well (in several languages), and they'd told their parents enough for them to know what they'd experienced. There were already indications that Adele's babies would share some of traits of their brothers and sisters, so they must have picked that up from Chuck.

The expectation, and yes, concern (from the fear of what the Daemons' influence may do to the babies), was always there that the babies had gotten things from the Daemons, but they hadn't had confirmation of this until they started speaking properly at nearly five months. Chuck and Sarah had adopted the habit of having their private discussions, things that they didn't want to worry the others with, in Phoenician (which they both knew quite well from memories of lifetimes there), as no-one else living knew that language, or so they thought.

That was why they'd gotten such a shock when Helen had responded to them in the same language, they'd tested her knowledge of the language, in hope that she'd just copied the words she heard, but she'd displayed a proper knowledge of the language, as had Nessie, Castor and Pollux. As their ability to communicate improved, they showed Chuck and Sarah how they'd acquired the Daemons' memories from them, along with the life force (this was why Sarah had been so drained during the latter months of the pregnancy). The same thing was happening with Adele, but luckily her babies were drawing less from her than Sarah's had, and at least now they knew how to sustain Adele through the pregnancy.

What came out over time was that it appeared that the Daemons' mechanisms to draw life force had kicked in instinctively earlier in the pregnancy (around the time that Sarah, Chuck and Adele had started feeling the connection with them on their trip around South America, they thought), which was why they'd grown and developed so fast in the womb, and they'd also drawn from their connection to Chuck through Sarah, which had had the beneficial effect of revitalising her.

The transfer of memories only appeared to have started in the last month to month and a half or so of the pregnancy, but it had continued after they were born. They appeared to have pretty much all of the memories that Sarah had access to (including her own), and most of what Chuck had as well, as unless they made a major effort to block them from leaking out, their children saw whatever memories Chuck or Sarah were accessing, and it wasn't often that they managed to block them. This meant that their children knew things that no child should ever know, but thankfully there was no indication that this had harmed them.

Their children were still drawing life force from them as well, which was why they were still growing and developing physically faster than any normal babies, but now they got it from whatever parent was closer, rather than primarily from Sarah as they had when they were in her womb. It would take them a couple of years to learn how to turn these instinctive mechanisms off (and on again when required), so their early development was to be quite rapid.

* * *

When Mei took over the Dragons training she saw that Scottie had been right, whether from Anna's teaching or the dedication that they put into their training, they'd become quite a lot better in the time that she'd been away. When she observed their firearms practice, she saw the same thing there, as they were nearly all quite proficient with both the rifles and revolvers now.

They'd all come to see how the girls were getting along, and as they watched, Tom said wonderingly. "Our Dragons are as good as most trained soldiers now, if not better. Hell, what am I saying? They _are_ trained soldiers now, and damned good ones!"

At that he stopped and glanced at Chuck with a smirk. "I think the Dragons should be called the Dragoons, Barton's Dragoons!"

Everyone but Chuck laughed at that, and Tom and some of the others were giving each other thoughtful, mischievous looks, which told Chuck that they were up to something!

With Chuck, John, Rick, Joshua and the Marines and crew who'd joined them after the Belle's maiden voyage, their core fighting force was well over seventy now, which had mostly been broken up into eighteen of their four man fire teams. After seeing the developments with 'Barton's Dragoons', Tom worked with Mei and Anna to split most of the girls into eighteen groups of eight (to make up groups of twelve when put together with the troopers' groups of four) and started drilling the troopers with the girls. The girls' firearms handling improved even further through these drills, while the men's fighting abilities, both unarmed and with blades, also improved notably when they trained with the girls. These developments were startling to most of them, as none of them would have ever expected the girls to become this accomplished, the original intent for their training had only been to ensure that they could protect themselves against what they'd had to endure before and make them feel safer, but they had obviously underestimated the girls' determination in this.

There would generally be half or more of the troopers and marines remaining at the hacienda to protect it and the family, but it was obvious that the girls had by now improved to the point where they could perform quite effectively as the 'Household Guard' by themselves if they had to, with a few of the crew to operate the heavier weapons (though they were learning to use them as well). On top of that, they had nearly twenty other men who were ex-military or had experience fighting Indians working with the hacienda and over thirty more men and women who were learning how to fight (not forgetting Sarah, Hattie, Zondra, Mei, Ellie and Adele when they weren't pregnant, of course) to bolster their defences, so all in all the hacienda was quite secure.

It didn't take long for Tom and the others' prank or whatever they wanted to call it to come to fruition, as 'Barton's Dragoons' flags and badges started showing up all over the place, even Tom, Andy, Rick and the troopers and marines were wearing them. The design that they had come up with was actually quite striking, that being a red boar's head encircled by a red dragon on a white background. It was a good thing that Chuck didn't mind it, because as soon as it had been created, the others (including Sarah) informed him that it had been officially voted in as their insignia.

* * *

Ellie and Hattie were quite happy to take on the task of Johanna's education, because that was one of the few things that their husbands and the others would let them do. They were both well educated, highly intelligent women who were quite up to the task, and they (like everyone else) wanted to make things better for this delightful girl, as she'd had more than enough bad in her life so far.

It fell to Hattie to calm Johanna down when Ben and Zondra suddenly left without her on a trip, because she knew exactly what they were doing, Zondra had spent enough time talking to her about it, and in fact she'd been the one who'd suggested it. What it basically came down to was that Johanna had awoken maternal instincts in Zondra. When they brought her home, Zondra had quickly come to love the girl, almost as much as she did her father, and she'd started to worry about what effect her and Ben living together the way they were might have on her, as she was thinking that by conventional standards this was a bad example to be setting for a young girl.

Zondra talked to Hattie about this because she was still embarrassed about what she'd said to Sarah, and felt too guilty about that to ask her advice on what she could do to make this right. She'd been angry when Hattie had laughed at her, but Hattie had come back with the usual brutal honesty that she knew all too well, bluntly telling her that there was a simple way to get past the problem that she was struggling with, because if she married Ben, she'd be Johanna's stepmother, and there was nothing improper about that! Zondra had tried to say that they couldn't, to which Hattie had quite simply cut through all her arguments by asking. "Why not?"

Zondra had discussed the idea with Ben and he'd loved it, his only caveat being what he'd like Lucy's parents and his mother to be there for the wedding, so that was where they were now, discussing the matter with them. When the question about Zondra's own family had came up though, she had angrily lashed out at Ben and then collapsed in tears.

 **Zondra's origin story starts here, skip it if you don't like dark tales.**

Once she'd finally settled down enough to speak, she explained what the problem was. "I grew up in New York like Hattie, but in a very different world to her's Ben. You see my father worked for the Garibaldi family, who were one of the most powerful of the Italian crime families, and my mother was the belle of the ball at all their parties because of her beauty and charm. As I became a woman and grew to be more and more like my mother, the higher ups in the Garibaldi family started insisting that I attend those 'family' parties as well, to brighten the room as my mother did."

"At first it was quite exciting and fun for me as a young girl, getting to wear all of those lovely gowns and go to the fancy parties with all that music and dancing, but after a little while some of the men's attentions started to make me uncomfortable. I should have realised that something wasn't right when I told my father about that and he said not to say anything to Mama, but I was just a naive girl and did as I was told. Those men steered clear of me after that, they'd obviously been told that someone else had his eye on me but I thought everything was fine up until the night when I was sixteen that someone came to tell me that Don Garibaldi wanted to talk to me."

"I was taken to a parlour elsewhere in the house to see the Don, but there was no talk, because as soon as I arrived he just grabbed me and started kissing and mauling me, and he knocked me out when I struggled to get free of him. I came to in a bedroom to find him tearing my clothes off, and he hit me again because I tried to fight him off, but it wasn't hard enough to knock me out that time so I was dazed but awake though everything he did to me as he raped me repeatedly, in all sorts of terrible ways."

"Afterwards, he told me that if I ever spoke a word of this to anyone my entire family would die with me and then left me laying there, covered in little more than my own blood. I pulled my clothes together and used whatever I could find to try and cover myself with before I left, finding out that the bedroom was just off the parlour I had been taken to as I stumbled out. People were watching me stumbling home, hardly able to walk, but as I found out later it wasn't unusual to see women and girls coming away from those parties in my state, and they were all too afraid of the Garibaldis to lift a finger to help me."

"I finally managed to struggle all the way home but God, it hurt so much! My mother was there waiting for me and she was frantic, because when she went looking for me at the party she'd been told that I'd been taken home as I wasn't feeling well, but I wasn't there when she'd rushed home to find out what was wrong. She'd gone back to the Garibaldis' to ask about me, then checked at the hospital before coming home to wait for me because she was told the same thing again."

"It was obvious what had happened to me, so Mama's first priority was to get the neighbourhood doctor to see to me. My parents were in the room when he examined me and I heard him tell them that I needed to go to the hospital because the damage was far more than he could deal with. My mother was begging him to get me there as quick as possible but my father tried to stop her, eventually admitting that it had been Don Garibaldi who'd done this to me because I'd fought him, and telling her that we'd all be killed if this got out."

"My mother stared at him in shock and disgust, but then turned her back on him and told the doctor again that he _had_ to get me to the hospital, he had to save me! The doctor ran off to get whatever he could find at that time of night to take me to the hospital, and my parents kept arguing about what had happened, until my father turned to hurry out of the room, and the house. I must have passed out after that, because I don't remember being taken to the hospital."

"I was told the next day, in the hospital, that my mother had been brutally raped and murdered in our home later that night, and the doctor had been killed as well. It was one of the doctors who told me, because my father never visited me, though I did hear that other men had been prevented from entering my hospital ward by the government men who'd come in the night before."

"A couple of days later a man came in, introducing himself as Roan Montgomery and telling me that he was from the government. He was honest with me when he explained that the government was paying for my treatment in the hospital but that was because they needed something from me, they needed me to testify against Don Garibaldi in court so that they could to imprison him. Roan seemed quite sympathetic to what had happened to me and my mother, and from what I know of him now I am confident that that sympathy was genuine."

"He told me that a man who they'd had working inside the Garibaldi family had been there that night when my father came in in a panic, telling his superiors that he hadn't been able to stop my mother and the doctor taking me to the hospital, and that my mother been ranting about seeing the Don in Hell for doing this to her daughter."

"Their man reported this as soon as he could get away and they sent people to the hospital to protect us, but while they got to the hospital before Garibaldi's thugs did so _I_ was safe, Mama had gone home to get clothes for the two of us. Some of the government men went after her but they didn't get there in time to save Mama, her body was the only thing they found when they got there. By the time they went looking for the doctor, he had been killed as well."

"They arrested Don Garibaldi and arranged for the trial to happen as soon as it was safe for me to leave my hospital bed, as they wanted to get the most out of people's reactions to what had been done to me. Roan apologised for this, but explained that it would be their best chance to get the Don locked away quickly so they could move in and stop his family's support of the Knights of the Golden Circle's actions to destabilise the Union's war efforts."

"I agreed to testify, because I understood what he was saying, but that didn't ease my pain and anguish when I had sit there and listen to the doctors describing in detail how I'd been so torn up inside by what he did to me that it was almost certain that I'd never be able to have children."

"After the trial, I was taken back to the hospital to recover and Roan visited me often while I was there to try to keep my spirits up. He also arranged for me to stay with some friends of his where I'd be safe and well looked after I'd been released from the hospital. He kept visiting me at his friends' when he could, to see how I was, and it was on one of those visits that I made a proposal for me to work for the government, helping bring down the rest of those bastards."

"Roan tried to talk me out of it, saying that it could ultimately result in my being put in another situation like the one that I'd already been subjected to, but my need for retribution, against both my father (who hadn't gone down with the Don), and others like him was so strong that I eventually got him to agree by promising him that no man would _ever_ survive trying to do anything like that to me again."

"On that day, Maria Rossi disappeared. I created the name Zondra out of mother's birth name (Sondra Zappeti) to honour her, and I changed Rossi to Rizzo to remove any last connection to my father. Roan had me trained by the best people he knew to try and ensure that I could do what I told him I'd do and I made sure that my father was one of the first ones that I took down, then I just I went on from there. So no my dear Ben, I don't have _any_ family on my side for the wedding."

 **End of Zondra's origin story.**

Ben had been quiet for a while after she finished her story, unable to do anything but cry, but eventually he asked through his tears over what had been done to her and her mother. "What about Roan though? From what you've told me, his actions and your feelings for him have given him the place of at least a favourite uncle in your life, wouldn't you like to have _him_ there?"

Zondra had never actually thought about Roan that way before, but now that she stopped to think about it she realised that Ben was right, Roan _was_ the only good father figure in her life, and the only one outside of the immediate family that she'd want to be at her wedding. When she said that, Ben answered that once they'd told Johanna's grandparents they could go on to Washington to tell Roan and ask if he wanted to be part of it.

As Ben knew full well would happen, Lucy's parents were _delighted_ with the idea of Zondra becoming Johanna's stepmother (after all, they'd basically told her that when they met her), and they and his mother started making arrangements for things to be looked after in their absence while Ben, Zondra and their protection detail went on to Washington to see Roan. Roan was also delighted and quick to agree to come, so it wasn't much more than two days later when they were back in Todd River to pick up the grandparents. They were waiting at the station when the train arrived, so they were all settled in the Pullman's Hotel car before the loco's water tanks had been topped up.

Johanna's grandparents were amazed by the luxury of the rail car that they were travelling in, and even Roan had to admit to being impressed.

As an intelligence officer though, Roan was more interested in the Elana, because even without being able to see the log of the boat's speed (Joseph had had the log disconnected when he saw Roan boarding, as he recognised him), he could tell that they were going damned fast compared to most ships. Due to his doubts about Roan, Joseph kept the Elana's speed down to avoid giving too much away, so it took them over 20 hours to get back to Los Angeles.

When they did, Roan was expecting them to pull into San Pedro Bay where the other ships were, so he was rather surprised when they steamed straight past the bay and proceeded on up the river. The next surprise was when they pulled into Casa Memphis's dock, this was only supposed to be a brief stop to pick up a few more passengers, but their guests were so interested in the place that they'd been taken up to see it, and they were delighted with the house.

Johanna's grandparents asked about the building that had been started on the other half of the block, and hearing that Colonel Casey's ex-wife and daughter (who was apparently about the same age as Johanna), would be living there once his daughter finished school back east heartened them, though they couldn't understand why Ben and Zondra had laughed at that, as they wouldn't say more than that they'd see when they got to the hacienda.

Once they'd wired through that they were on their way, they boarded the Elana again and proceeded up the river. Johanna's grandparents had never seen lock gates, so they were amazed to observe the operation as the Elana passed through the canal to the lake, and Roan's amazement was only slightly less than their's to see machinery like this on a private canal.

The family was there waiting for them when the Elana pulled into the dock (along with the Memphis Belle, but they'd been asking about her all the way up the canal). Johanna hadn't understood when Sarah had come to get her and told her to go get cleaned up and put a nice dress on (it hadn't taken Johanna long to adopt wearing the more practical and comfortable trousers around the hacienda like all the other girls), not until she saw her grandparents coming off the Elana, and she ran to greet them.


	10. Weddings and Children

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's back there somewhere!** **There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

After Zondra had told her story to Ben, she'd also shared it with Sarah, Hattie and the others, so while there had been many tears of anguish over what had happened to her and her mother, their views on Roan Montgomery had certainly improved. Roan had been apprehensive when Hattie headed straight for him as soon as he walked off the Elana, so he had the surprise of his life when she wrapped her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek and saying in a broken voice "Thank you Uncle Roan!" (she had actually called him that since she met him back when she was living with her aunt).

Roan looked at her as if she were crazy, saying. "Not to complain, my Dear, but I was under the impression that you were still angry with me for not keeping my mouth shut with your aunt?"

She smiled "I still am a bit about that, but since then we've heard what you did for Zondra, and that outweighs your loose mouth, so you're forgiven."

He looked at her in shock. "She told you about _that_? I was sure that she'd take that secret to her grave, to save herself the pain of opening those wounds!"

Hattie darted a look at Zondra and Ben and lowered her voice. "Ben was suggesting that they bring her family over, because he wanted to make her wedding as good as it could be for her, but that just made her explode. When sthemhe'd settled down enough she had to tell him just _why_ she wouldn't have any family there. After she finished telling him her story though, Ben pointed out to her that from what she'd told him, _you_ had become family for her, and that was why they came to get you."

They were both distracted by their recollections of Zondra's story and how horrible it had been for her, so they didn't realise that she and Ben had come over until they were interrupted by Zondra saying. "Well that makes this simpler. Roan, you _are_ the closest thing I have to a father, so we wanted to ask if you would give me away at the wedding?"

Between being caught out like that and what Zondra had asked him, Roan was dumbstruck, but he managed to recover enough to say that if she was sure that that was what she wanted, he would of course be honoured and delighted to give her away. That got him another kiss on the cheek from Zondra.

On the way up to the house, Johanna's grandparents were coming to understand Ben and Zondra's laughter about Johanna having another girl her age around, as Johanna was excitedly introducing them to dozens of teenaged Chinese, Mexican, white, black and Indian girls, and more than a few of them were around her own age. Her grandparents were settled into their rooms in the big house to recover from the trip and excitement while Ben and Zondra sat Johanna down to explain what they had in mind, _if_ she agreed. Her agreement and delight with the idea of her father marrying Zondra was made abundantly obvious by the way she'd leapt on Zondra and wrapped her arms around her neck so tightly that she was almost throttling Johnher.

Ben and Zondra left Johanna at the big house while they went to see Father Maurice about marrying them. They were a little worried about the fact that Ben wasn't Catholic, but the entire family had developed a connection with Father Maurice since he came down with the girls from San Francisco, so they were hoping that he would be prepared to overlook that omission and marry them anyway.

* * *

Father Maurice had been the priest attached to the convent in Sacramento where the girls were being looked after while the team was in New Orleans. When the time came for the girls to move to Los Angeles, he and the Mother Superior had agreed that these poor girls needed him more than the convent did, so he came to Los Angeles with them, only to find that he had a community of over two hundred to look after, and that kept expanding over the next year or two.

The reason Ben and Zondra wanted to see him that night was to find out whether he _would_ marry them and if so, how soon he could perform the ceremony. Father Maurice had already married over twenty of the girls and christened several of the babies born at the hacienda in the chapel there, as well as marrying half a dozen other young couples from the hacienda's village, so they were hoping that the only issue would be working it into his schedule.

As confessor and/or confidant for the girls, Father Maurice understood why only about a dozen of the girls' marriages he'd presided over so far would ever have them living as man and wife, as the main point for most of them was to provide a veneer of respectability for the unwed mothers and other girls and even in time, only about a third of them would be able to go that far. The men of the hacienda were better than most, but after what these girls had gone through, most of them couldn't trust any man enough to be comfortable being close to or being touched by them. Chuck was the primary exception to this, along with John, Joshua, Joseph and some of the older men who were safe father figures for them, as well as the half dozen like Bill and Weed who didn't desire women at all. They'd had official records created to show that most of the girls who couldn't find anyone they felt safe enough to marry were young widows (using the names of men with no family to speak of who'd been killed around the country), though they had to alter their ages on those records for many of them to show that they'd been old enough to marry, and most of the Chinese and Indian girls used the English names they'd come to be known by and were being passed off as Mexicans to hide them from anyone who might be looking for them. With Jane's help, people on Los Angeles believed that the people of the hacienda were a group who had been looking for somewhere to settle since they fled New Orleans in the war, and Father Maurice actually helped foster that impression as he added to the French speaking face of the community.

* * *

On the scales of right and wrong, the error of Ben's church was definitely outweighed by the good things that the Father had seen him be part of in his book (rescuing all those Chinese and other girls and bringing them here to give them a new life was quite a big thing in Father Maurice's book, and that was far from the only good thing he'd seen these people do), so he had no trouble agreeing to wed the pair. He was saddened to hear that Ben's first wife had died, but happy to hear of his daughter being recovered, and that she'd have a family with him again.

With those questions out of the way, he said that he would marry them as soon as they were ready. The wedding had been a foregone conclusion to most of them, so the ladies in the village (as the houses around the big house were called) had already made up Zondra's wedding dress, and had almost finished Sarah, Mei and Johanna's dresses as well. Ben's, Chuck's, Tom's and Weed's suits had been made and everything was ready for the chapel, so all they'd been waiting to do the final touches was to get the date. They agreed on the day after tomorrow for the wedding, so the next day was spent making the final touches to the dresses and the chapel, and they had the wedding the following morning.

The wedding went off perfectly, and Father Maurice was enjoying himself at the dinner in the courtyard afterwards. The courtyard in the big house was the only 'proper' example of the hacienda courtyard that he'd had the opportunity to experience, and he couldn't believe how cool and peaceful it was with the splashing water from the fountains, the atmosphere was so relaxed that after a few glasses of the excellent (but rather potent) cognac that they were serving, he loosened up enough to allow himself to have a dig at John.

"Monsieur Casey, it appears that you are lagging behind all of your friends, when are you going to wed your lovely lady and start a family?"

John's reaction surprised everyone. "Well Father, we _were_ going to talk to you about that once Ben and Zondra were married..."

Those who heard looked from John and Mei's embarrassment to Ellie (as their resident doctor), to see her and her sister-in-law smiling at each other mysteriously, which confirmed their suspicions (that the only reason for there to be any hurry for them to get married would be that Mei was in fact pregnant). They were actually impressed that Chuck was managing to keep a straight face, as there was no way that his wife and sister would know about this without him knowing too.

The good father was feeling rather mellow, and so was happy to grant absolution for them having relations out of wedlock (especially as almost half the couples he'd married had had the same head start on their families). He could still concentrate well enough to understand that they wanted to have the wedding once John's daughter and Uncle arrived, and word had just been sent to them.

He was concerned about the mention of him having a daughter though, reminding John that the church did not approve of divorce or children born out of wedlock, but John managed to dance around that. "Oh no father, there was no divorce, you see my daughter has been living with my wife's family since the death of…..." That slight misdirection of the truth (as the 'marriage' of Alexander Coburn and Kathleen McHugh had indeed been indeed finished by the 'death' of Alexander Coburn) was enough to appease the good father, and they made the necessary arrangements before Father Maurice was helped back to the priory to sleep off the cognac.

Once the good father was gone, the others descended on John and Mei, demanding answers. John tersely told them that they'd only just had it confirmed that Mei was expecting, and they'd already sent telegrams to both Kathleen and Andre. He and Mei would be going along on the trip to take Johanna's grandparents and 'Uncle Roan' home, and then would continue on up to Connecticut to collect Kathleen and Alex, picking up Andre as they came through St Louis on the way back.

Hattie looked at John and said "Johnny, you know..." and he nodded resignedly "Yes, I'm well aware that Alex, and probably Oncle Andre, will be begging to stay until after the babies are born once they're here, but I'll just have to get them to see sense when they get here."

She shook her head with a smile at that and stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. "Oh Johnny, you don't _really_ believe that you have any hope of saying 'no' to Alex, do you? I seriously doubt that you'll _EVER_ be able to say 'no' to your little girl. Heaven help you if Mei's baby is a girl, too!"

He just shook his head, not bothering to answer, and she left with a delighted laugh.

The morning after Zondra and Ben's wedding, John went to the priory to confirm that Father Maurice had been sober enough to remember that he'd agreed to marry Mei and him in just over two weeks. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the Father had already written it in the book, and showed him the date that he'd marked off for their wedding.

John thanked him, and they discussed a few of the things that they hadn't covered before. Yes, John was a Catholic (courtesy of his mother), though it had been a while since he'd been to mass. No, Mei wasn't, she was Lutheran (she'd had enough to do with the Lutheran missionaries in China to fake that convincingly, so long as Father Maurice wasn't an expert on the Lutheran church). He had no qualms in confirming that neither he nor Mei had ever been divorced, as that at least was the absolute truth.

With those details out of the way, John had to give confession (an edited account), just as Zondra had had to do, and promise to do penance for his transgressions, and with that Father Maurice was happy that they were ready to proceed with the wedding.

* * *

Their guests spent the rest of that day with Ben, Zondra and Johanna, and then they were saying goodbye and boarding the Elana to head back up the coast to San Francisco, and hence catch the train home. With Roan on board, Joseph once again had Scottie keep their speed down to what would be regarded as a fast boat, but not so fast that he would feel compelled to nose about. Joseph felt a little guilt about doing this, considering that Roan was almost family, but that ' _almost_ ' was a key factor. They still didn't know whether they could trust him to keep their secrets, so they couldn't afford to let him see anything that might harm them if he didn't. At least now he had John to discuss this with, and John agreed that he wanted to trust Roan, but wasn't sure whether they could yet.

They had a Pullman's Hotel car waiting for them at Oakland Station for the trip back, and on their way east again, Johanna's grandparents asked John how he'd become part of this life. The troopers along for the trip were more than a little surprised about how frank and open the Colonel was being, but presumed that this was planned because Miss Mei didn't seem too worried about it.

Roan was obviously quite interested in what John was saying about how he'd been a different man, one he was only finding his way back to now, before his wife had been taken by Indians and he had been abandoned and left for dead while out on a patrol before the war. The majority of the story that John told was the truth, how Alex Coburn had swapped lives with John Casey and was buried up in the Utah Territory after he'd found that prospector dead, how he'd started the war as part of the Confederate Army, but gave himself up and changed sides after an incident involving Chuck, and how he'd discovered almost by accident nearly twelve years later that his 'wife' had in fact survived and been rescued, _and_ that he had a daughter.

He finished the story with the tale of how they'd tracked down his 'wife' and daughter, only to find that she'd remarried, believing him dead. It was only after she married the snake that she found out that the man was a crook who then proceeded to steal everything from them, so the family had helped her get a divorce from him and then set her and Alex up with a new life, hidden away from him and the nefarious types that he was involved with.

The women were crying by the end of his story, but Bill caught the Colonel watching Roan Montgomery and cottoned onto the fact that the real purpose of this had largely been to measure just how much the man could be trusted. If any of this got out, they'd have the answer to _that_!

There were tearful goodbyes when they left Johanna's grandparents in Todd River, and from there they proceeded on to Washington to drop Roan off.

* * *

John and Roan had more discussions along the way to Washington, but these had been more verbal fencing than doing anything to clear the air, so just before they reached Washington Roan suggested that they step out onto the observation deck for a cigar. Once they were out there, and presumably safe from being overheard, Roan dropped his habitual facade of a charming buffoon to address John man to man.

"May I call you John, or do you still not trust me enough to allow that familiarity?"

John merely nodded his acceptance, so Roan went on.

"John, I know that you and some of the others have doubts about me, and in particular my integrity and motivation. I will concede that when it comes to most women my motives are often questionable, but when it comes to the family that you and two of the very small number of people who mean anything to me in this world belong to they aren't. What do I need to do to convince you that I can be trusted? Because to be honest, being cut off from Harriet and Zondra would be a great blow to me, especially with Harriet's baby being due so soon, and I sense that _you_ are the person I need to convince that I can be trusted to be allowed into your family."

"Will you allow me to present my case?" John nodded again.

"Firstly, you can investigate with everything in your team's considerable repertoire, but I can assure you that you will not find any genuine evidence of _anything_ about any of your people having come from me, because I do not do anything against those I care about."

"Case in point, I have been aware that you were, or rather are, the infamous Confederate assassin known as the Bear all along. We actually crossed paths more than once down there in the war, and given the number of times we met while I was working undercover in the Confederacy, I must say that I was rather surprised that you didn't recognise me. Your methods haven't changed that much since then by the way." That made John take a closer look at him and nod thoughtfully, as while he hadn't seen it before, he _did_ recognise him now.

"I presume that Sarah's connection with you from the Confederacy was what convinced Charles agree to work with you after you'd almost killed him? I was, of course, one of her many admirers down there, but even I wouldn't have tried to charm her if I'd know how young she really was. She was incredible even then, the way she fooled all of us with her act of being several years older than she actually was, even you I dare say?" John nodded again.

"Alexander Coburn's record and background were also known to me, except for what you told Johanna's grandparents on the train about how you changed from Alex Coburn to John Casey and about your wife and daughter as there are no records of most of that, as I expect you know. As a matter of interest, did you deal with your father and brothers down in New Orleans yourself?"

John shook his head. "No, Chuck and Sarah wouldn't let me have that on my conscience, so they did it."

Roan nodded. "John, if you check you will find confirmation that I crossed paths with both you and Sarah several times down south in the war, but I have never said a thing about either of you. This was not for political wrangling, it was partly because of what you've been doing since the war, but more because of the big part you have played in both Harriet and Zondra's lives, especially Harriet's. I've known both of them since they were just girls, and I feel responsible for them because of the role I had in getting them into this life, but more to the point I truly care for and about the both of them. Please do not cut me out of their lives, out of their family."

He looked out over the countryside for a while before turning back to John. "Professionally, I was originally a lawyer myself, but like Harriet I found that that life lacked something, so I have been a law man and intelligence officer for over a quarter of a century now. I was a Deputy Marshal in the east coast cities up until the war, but when the war started I was asked to join Allan Pinkerton and others in forming the Union Intelligence Service. I was active in the Intelligence Service throughout the war and after the war I was transferred into the United States Secret Service. While my professional life has earned me a respectable degree of distinction however, my personal life has been a mess, little more than an endless line of meaningless conquests, one after the other. I do love Harriet's Aunt Carina John, and someone else whom I wronged in the past, but I love Harriet and Zondra as the daughters I never had. That was why I have been trying to keep an eye on your group, to assure myself that they're all right. Even there I failed though, because I failed to identify the risk to Harriet from Daniel Shaw, and I lost track of Zondra when I took over the Secret Service so she got caught up in that business down in New Orleans."

He snorted. "Worrying about them was a large part of why I stupidly told Carina about Harriet's work, and your group too, because her aunt loves and worries about her, so I was trying to reassure her that Harriet would be all right, and talking about her somehow made both of us feel closer to her."

He looked up at John again. "Is this making any sense to you, or are you just writing it off as the ramblings of an old fool?"

John shook his head. "No, it does make sense. I've been much the same way with Sarah since I first met her in the war, I've been following her career and trying to keep her safe. It's still hard to believe that she was only eleven when I met her though as you're right, she was masterful even then. Since we got teamed up with Chuck and Ellie was added in, I've tried to watch over them too. Chuck isn't weak in any way, I couldn't believe that anyone could take what he took and keep going that time I almost killed him, especially as he was only sixteen at the time, but his soul hasn't been sullied by this life the way that our's have…. I reckon that's what I'm trying to protect, that and the fact that it would destroy Sarah if she were to lose him."

"If you've been watching her the way you say you have, I expect that you also know about the relationship that Harriet and I had back when she was at the height of being Carina Miller, the wild one, but that does not change the fact that I do my best to protect her from anything and anyone, then and now, and that goes for Zondra, Mei, Adele and the other girls too. Don't kick your self too much for losing sight of Harriet and Zondra at times, like Sarah they are damned good at their jobs, so they're quite capable of disappearing unless you're right there to see what they're doing."

They stood in a companionable silence for a while after that, then Roan turned to John and asked.

"So, have I earned the right to stay as part of Harriet and Zondra's lives, and the family?"

"I believe so…. I'll give you a qualified yes for now, which as good as I'm prepared to give anyone outside of our immediate family."

He pointed his cigar at Roan. "Stop trying to look into the Elana, the Memphis Belle and the other boats though, if anything you do brings attention to us and them, then whatever trust we may have in you at this point will be gone!"

Roan nodded, asking. "I presume that that applies to the Gatling guns, cannon, and whatever that thing they're building in that covered building behind the hacienda is too?"

John locked gazes with him. "Yes!"

Roan nodded easily.

John looked away for a while, then looked back at him. "Can you get this Don Garibaldi's location for me?"

Roan chuckled grimly as he nodded. "Calvary Cemetery, he died in prison less than a week after his trial. They found him inside his locked cell one morning, tied down and gagged, with a rough wooden stake driven right up inside him. He'd bled out during the night, but apparently it wasn't a clean kill, as going by the lacerations from the ropes used to tie him down he'd been thrashing around for quite a while before he died. They never did find out who did it, but there was a lot of speculation that someone in the Garibaldi family must have wanted to make sure that he never came back to take over again, or possibly get revenge for some slight, because a couple of the prison guards who were known to be on the family's payroll disappeared that night. That apparently started infighting in the family which thinned their ranks quite a bit."

John nodded approvingly. "Did you tell her?"

"Just that she was safe, he was dead and she didn't need to worry about him any more."

"What about her father?"

"Oh he died in prison as well, he was bound and gagged and stabbed multiple times in the stomach with something small and jagged, he apparently took a while to bleed out too. She never asked about him and I didn't tell her."

John nodded approvingly again. "Alright Roan, I'll trust you, but I _w_ _ill_ be keeping an eye on you."

Roan nodded easily at that "I'll take that." He held out his hand and John shook it.

As Roan left the train in Washington, John handed him a piece of paper, when Roan looked a question at him, he nodded to the paper and explained. "Those are the names and private communication codes you need to wire Harriet, Zondra and me. It includes how to address the wires and one set of codes to hide the content, along with another set of codes for you to decode the replies. Use them when you want to contact Harriet and Zondra. So long as we keep trusting you, we'll tell you when we change the codes and addresses."

He hesitated and then added. "Look, contact Harriet, if she wants you there and you can make the time she'll give you the day and time that you need to be in St Louis so we can pick you up to take you back to be there for her baby's birth, my Uncle Andre will be waiting there for us as well."

Roan smiled gratefully and shook his hand. "Thank you John!"

* * *

The next day, they were picking up Hattie's mother and aunt in New York, along with a bag of legal paperwork and congratulations from Jim Goodman as they changed their car to a train heading north. Hattie's Aunt Carina had gone down to New York (with a Pinkerton escort) to collect her mother for their California trip, so they met the others at the railroad station and they all headed up to Farmington in the Pullman car.

When they arrived, Kathleen and Alex were waiting with Albert at the station. Albert drove the Miller sisters over to Hartford in the Landau to collect Andy's mother, while the Pullman car was unhitched from the train and Kathleen and Alex's luggage was loaded into the car (they'd folded both bunks down in one station, and used them to store the ladies' luggage).

It took them almost two and a half hours to pick up Elizabeth, which meant there was only just time to load her luggage and hitch up the Pullman car to the next train leaving on the more direct route back to St Louis (straight across, rather than down through New York and Washington). They wired Roan and Andre to say that they were on their way before they left Farmington.

When they arrived in St Louis, Andre and Roan were chatting away like old friends. John had been expecting something of the kind though, as the two charming old rogues were two of a kind in many ways, down to the fact that they had almost as much luggage as the ladies did. Neither of them missed the disapproving look John cast at the pile of bags, and he was only slightly mollified when Roan murmured that the largest trunk was from Uncle Sam.

Things were initially quite cool between Hattie's mother and Roan after she discovered that he'd been instrumental in getting Hattie into this life, but they were all surprised that it was Mei who managed to talk her around. Mei did that by recounting what Hattie herself had told her about her life.

When the starting point of the story was how the fifteen year old Hattie had run away from her family home to avoid being forced into a marriage of convenience by her father for the purpose of shoring up his business deals, well that took the wind out of the sails of any argument that this was largely Roan's fault, but she'd didn't stop there.

She repeated Hattie's story of how she'd gone to Harvard Law School and been admitted to the bar, as a boy, and she'd enjoyed that, but then she had quickly grown dissatisfied with that life, even though it doubtless would have been rather more interesting than the life of an idle society wife in a loveless marriage that her father had dictated for her. At that point she'd _CHOSEN_ to try the Secret Service after Roan discussed his life in the Secret Service with her.

John took over there, talking about how Hattie had been rather wild as Carina Miller (that got her sister a glare from Margaret), and she'd had some relationships that may not have been in her best interests, such as himself (the surprise was his this time though, as both Roan and Carina jumped in to repeat what Hattie, as Carina, had told them about how caring and protective he'd been to her back then), but she'd had another protector (Roan, as he knew now) to support her and watch over her, and he told her mother about a few of the situations that she'd told him about where her protector had rushed in to save her from some fate or another.

Then he pointed out that when she came to work with him and Sarah again, she'd met a fine man in Tom, whom she'd come to love, and marry, and was now about to start a family with. Therefore, while she may have led a wild and sometimes dangerous life, she'd found happiness, and that was something that would have almost certainly eluded her in the world she'd been destined for in New York!

Margaret was quiet for a while and Carina held her as she cried, but when she'd composed herself, she apologised to Roan and Carina, and John as well, for the way she'd behaved, saying that she'd only been lashing out at them because she'd lost her daughter. She'd been out of her daughter's life for so long, and she was only now realising that she didn't really know her any more.

Carina shushed her, saying. "Maggie, open your eyes! No, we don't really know much about what Hattie does for work, and I don't believe that either of us would want to for that matter! But do you remember our sweet little Hattie, that stubborn little girl who questioned everything and who's favourite word was 'No!', but who could light up the room with her smile and warm your heart with her laughter? Well she's back! Do you remember how she was before Henry started punishing her whenever she wasn't 'behaving like a young lady should', even in the privacy of your own home? We're seeing that girl again now! She's happy, she has a loving family in these wonderful friends of her's, and now she's creating her own family with Tommy, the man who finally managed to unlock her heart!"

She turned to look at John where he and Mei were smiling at each other, because from that description it appeared obvious who it was the young Hattie had taken after, unless her mother had been that way before she married the man she did too. "She did, does, truly care for you Johnny, but from what she told me, neither of you were ready to let go of your demons and open up your hearts to each other back then. I'm so glad that you, too, have finally found the person who could unlock your heart again, in Mei!"

She looked at Kathleen to apologise, but she was shaking her head with a smile to indicate that she agreed with what had been said. After all, she'd said much the same thing to Mei herself.

With that she turned back to her sister again. "What I'm trying to say Maggie, is that we haven't lost Hattie at all! In fact we have our sweet little Hattie, who lit up our lives and gave us so much joy, _BACK_ , and we can thank Johnny, Mei, and the rest of her friends for that. We can also thank Roan for helping save her from the hell that Henry tried to consign her to for _his_ benefit, because she would have been dying inside every day, trapped in that life he tried to force her into!"

Margaret kept crying, but when she raised her head she was smiling, and they could see a light of hope in her eyes that hadn't been there before. Mei smiled at her and started "Mrs Miller..." before being cut off with "Margaret, please Dear!"

"Margaret, you should get Hattie to tell you about our travels, and show you the photos. We don't have pictures of all of our travels by a long shot, but we do have quite a lot of pictures, so you'll see the type of life we lead sometimes. We've had adventures such as most people can only dream of, the good with the bad, but I believe I can say that scales are tipped to the good."

Elizabeth was nodding as she remembered the incredible stories and pictures that Eleanor and Andrew had shared with her when they came to Farmington previously. Margaret caught that and nodded to Mei with a smile. "I will do that, thank you Dear."

The rest of the train trip, and the passage down the coast in the Elana, was filled with stories of Hattie, and Andy, and the things they'd done, and those stories made the time fly.

When they came in to the dock on the lake at the hacienda, as usual the family was waiting. Hattie and Ellie were sitting in one of the passenger cars with Blackbird harnessed to the car. They could see the two awkwardly climbing to their feet, so they hurried over to try and stop them. After quick hugs all around they were induced to sit again, and the older ladies climbed onto the car with them before Blackbird was led back to the house.

When they reached the hacienda, Margaret, Carina and Elizabeth couldn't believe that _this_ was what these people had been referring to as the 'old hacienda' that they lived in, because it was magnificent. After the heat outside, the cool atmosphere in the courtyard with the splashing fountains was delightful too.

As expected, the reunions took some time, but the meeting between Alex and Johanna was sweet, as it was obvious from the start that they were going to be good friends, especially with their semi-family status.

* * *

The atmosphere was more relaxed than Zondra and Ben's wedding had been, as they'd had a couple weeks to get ready so much of the work was already done. The only real surprise was when Mei asked Andre if he'd give her away, as he was as dumbstruck as Roan had been when Zondra asked _him_ , but once he'd gotten over the surprise, he was delighted to agree.

John did take the time to sit down with Chuck, Sarah, Hattie, Tom, Zondra and Ben to talk about the discussion he'd had with Roan. Hattie and Zondra were misty eyed about the things that Roan had said about them, and they all agreed that what he'd said rang true with the feel that they'd gotten from him.

When John talked about what Roan had said about being undercover in the Confederacy, Sarah realised that she _did_ remember him from those days, and that he hadn't been like most of the men she'd met. Yes, he'd tried to charm the pants off her, but he'd accepted graciously when she'd declined his advances and she hadn't felt threatened or pressured by him at all, in fact she'd generally enjoyed his company.

John told Zondra in private about what had happened to Don Garibaldi and her father, and she admitted that she'd suspected that that may have been the case, but had never been brave enough to come out and ask him straight out. She'd turned to him with tears in her eyes as she asked whether it made her a bad person, that she was happy that someone would care enough about her to do that for her? John took her in his arms as he answered her.

"Of course not! They were both scum that the world's better off without and you're worth so much more than they were. In fact, it was Roan telling me about that that made me decide to give him a chance, the fact that he was prepared to go that far to protect the people he loves." He held her for a while, then waved Ben over to take his place, sharing the gist of what he'd told her when he arrived.

John didn't remember to have the talk with Kathleen and Alex about not mentioning who Kathleen was when Father Maurice was around until after they arrived at the hacienda. While not really happy about it, they could understand that their story was too complicated to try and explain to the priest.

In the ceremony, Sarah, Zondra and Alex stood with Mei, while Chuck, Ben and Weed stood with John, because Ellie and Hattie had had to bow out as they were too near the end of their pregnancies to be standing through the ceremonies, so Tom and Andy were out too.

The ceremony was simple, but heartfelt, and Father Maurice got rather merry from the cognac again at the dinner afterwards. He didn't have any more couples to prod this time, but he did point out that it was about time for Chuck and Sarah's children to be christened, along with some of the other babies around the hacienda. They got out of discussing it then by promising to sit down and talk to him about it soon, then he was helped back to the priory, singing merrily.

 **A/N: If anyone wants an image for Father Maurice, the one I had in mind when I was writing this was an older Maurice Chevalier, from his 1960s movies.**


	11. All Sorts of Births

**Think it's time to bring some of the side threads back in ;)**

 **Usual disclaimers, for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed, and the real world's somewhere else.** **There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

The next morning, John sat down to talk to Kathleen and Alex about Alex joining Johanna in studying with Ellie, Hattie, Sarah or Chuck in the library, and the spectators were shocked to see John sticking to his guns. Kathleen bowed out of this discussion early on to join Mei, Hattie, Sarah and Ellie (the other women who really knew Johnny) in watching with great amusement as John struggled _NOT_ to give in to his daughter's pleading.

Chuck, Tom, Andy and Ben kept away from this, as they knew all too well that they'd be in this situation soon enough (Ben had already experienced it himself, trying to talk Johanna around), but Andre and Roan joined the ladies in the gallery, Andre because he was rooting for his great-niece, and Roan to exalt in the spectacle of anyone even coming _close_ to besting the Bear, as that was something that he never thought he'd see!

John turned to scowl at his applauding audience when Alex finally gave in and agreed to taking lessons in the library (even though she knew that he never would have followed through on his threat to send her and her mother home if she didn't), because he found their applause rather hypocritical after they'd _all_ been rooting for Alex, even Mei!

His anger wasn't helped at all by his uncle's response. "Oh come now Johnny, I haven't seen you sulk like this since your father took your pony away after all the damage you did when you were racing him around the house!"

Alex had been heading for the library to do as she agreed, but hearing that comment pulled her up short and she spun around, her face lighting up with delight and mischief as she asked. "Papa? What is Uncle Andre talking about, what did you do?"

John glared at his uncle and just kissed her on the head, saying. "Ask Oncle Andre Sweetie, he obviously enjoys the story more than I."

All eyes turned to Andre and he smirked, settling down to start the story. "When Johnny was about eight?"

He was looking at John, but John ignored him and kept walking, so he continued. "Yes, about eight I think, he had a pretty little pony that he rode everywhere, he was so proud of that pony! His brothers and the other boys were mocking Jingo, that was his pony's name, and saying that he was a silly little thing that couldn't do anything."

Andre's amusement disappeared and he looked distraught as he suddenly remembered what had followed this, but he kept going with the story. "Some of the older boys knew Johnny's triggers, so they kept baiting him until he took the bet that he could ride Jingo right around the first floor of the plantation house in less than five minutes..."

Andre looked at Chuck and Sarah, "You saw how big the main house on the plantation was?" they just nodded.

"Anyway, Johnny took the bet, and when he was waved away they took off. He did it, they got around the first floor of that house in less than five minutes, but in doing so they tore up the rugs, smashed sideboards and everything in them when they crashed into them, and knocked mirrors and paintings off the wall and destroyed them as they brushed by. In less than five minutes they had done hundreds of dollars worth of damage in the house, and his father was furious!"

He was looking desolately after John as he finished the story. "His father sold Jingo right after that, not to pay for the damage, he knew he couldn't recover a fraction of the cost of the damage that way, he merely wanted to punish Johnny by taking away the thing that meant so much to him, and then he sent Johnny away to a boarding school for the next three years….. They took away most of his innocence and joy there, and Johnny came home a grimly serious young man even though he was not yet twelve... Pardon, I must go to him!" With that he hurried off after John.

When he caught up with him, he started pleading earnestly in French. " _Johnny? Johnny, I am so sorry,_ _I am a forgetful old fool who had only remembered the amusing parts of the story until I started to tell it. Can you ever forgive me? Please Johnny,_ _speak_ _to me!"_

John spoke as he raised his head to look at him. "Oui Oncle Andre... I forgive you, I just didn't find it a funny story, and now perhaps you remember why."

At that point he suddenly realised that they wouldn't be the only ones who were upset about this, and took Andre's shoulder to hustle him back to the others. Sure enough, Alex was standing there, totally distraught with tears streaming down her face. "Papa? Papa I'm sorry. I didn't know, I would never have asked if I knew!"

John picked her up as if she was nothing and rocked her in his arms as he shushed her, whispering that it was all right, until she pleaded, "Papa I'm sorry! Please don't send me away!" and he set her down to look her in the eye.

"Now you listen to me White Bird. I love you and I would _NEVER_ send you away to punish you for anything! I've missed too much of your life, and I don't want to ever be apart from you again unless I have to! The _only_ reason I want you to stay back east to finish your education is so that you will have the chance to get a degree like Aunt Sarah, Aunt Hattie and Aunt Ellie if that's what you choose to do. I want you to have the opportunity to do whatever you want to do, and that's the _only_ reason that I'd ever want to be apart from you, do you understand?"

Alex nodded, still crying but less distraught now, and he wrapped her in his arms again. When he hear her "I love you Papa!", muffled by his shirt which she had her face buried in, he whispered "I love you too my sweet girl!" into her hair.

Johanna whispered to Zondra "Why did he call her White Bird?" Zondra just shook her head, as she didn't know either. Sarah had heard the question though and reached her hand out to the girl. Johanna went to her, and Zondra followed to hear the story as well. They went to sit down at one of the tables at the other end the courtyard, and Sarah told them about how Kathleen had been taken by the Indians when she was carrying Alex, so Alex had been born on the northern plains while she was being held by the Indians.

Sarah explained how the Indians had called Alex White Bird when she was born, but her mother called her Alexandra Joan, after her father. She went on to say that Alex wasn't normally called White Bird, but they'd started using it within the close family when her father found them again. Johanna and Zondra looked back at Alex in amazement at that, because Alex looked so elegant in her nice dress (even with her hair mussed up from her father's attentions and her face streaked with tears) that it was impossible for them to see her as a girl born out on the plains with the Indians.

* * *

With the heat, Ellie, Hattie and Adele spent as much time as they could in the courtyard, where it was cooled by the fountains. Sarah's children were more toddlers than babies now, because while still shy of nine months old, they were all potty trained and could walk and talk (and run) quite well. Ellie was thinking as she watched them splashing about in the pools around the fountains, laughing and having a wonderful time, that as much as she loved her nieces and nephews and thought they were delightful, she was grateful that her own _single_ child wouldn't have the same accelerated development that they did.

She couldn't imagine how Chuck and Sarah were able to keep up with the four of them, as it was already obvious that they were going to be extraordinary, perhaps even more so than their exceptional parents, in fact that was almost a certainty! That was why she was happy that her expectations for her own daughter (she just had a feeling that it was a girl, and was already thinking of girls' names) were rather more 'normal', and she knew that Hattie shared this view for her own baby.

While Ellie was thinking this, Sarah came out of the ground floor office she and Chuck used, taking a break to see what her children were getting up to (though she already had a good idea through her links with them and they usually stayed close to 'Mama Del', talking to their brother and sister who hadn't come out yet). Sarah came over to hug her sister-in-law, and rest her hand on her belly briefly (her own pregnancy, combined with the Daemon's influence had given her, and to a lesser degree Chuck, the ability to feel what was going on in the human body with a touch, and they were using this to monitor Ellie, Hattie and Adele's pregnancies).

She smiled, saying. "She's ready to come out and meet the world El, it won't be more than a day now!"

Ellie scowled at her. "Thanks a lot Sis!"

Sarah looked confused. "What?"

"I was happy, believing that it's a girl and looking forward to finding out whether I was right, but now I know!"

"What do you mean?"

" 'she's ready to come out'?"

"Oh I'm sorry El, I didn't realise that I'd said that!"

Ellie had to chuckle. "Oh don't worry, I was pretty sure that it was a girl anyway, but you and your abilities do take the mystery away sometimes."

Sarah hugged her again, kissing her on the cheek and whispering "Sorry" again before going to fish Castor out of the pool and take him inside to get dry pants onto him, stopping a few steps away to turn back and fix her other darlings with a stern eye. "None of you better go in the pool when I'm gone, got it?"

Ellie chuckled at the murmurings of "No Mama", because even without the link Chuck and Sarah had with them she could tell that at least one or two of them would be in the pool by the time Sarah got back, and she knew that Sarah knew that too, she'd probably seen their intentions.

* * *

Sarah was right, of course, Ellie went into labour that night, but she had it easy compared to Sarah, she only had to suffer through five and a half hours before her daughter (of course) was born, and when she came, she was smaller than any of Sarah's had been. Ellie still managed to all but crush Andy's hand as she squeezed it though. Chuck caught him about to say something and had hissed into his ear to swallow his words if he valued his life! The look Andy flashed him at the time was angry, but afterwards he sent him a grateful look when he stopped to consider what Ellie's reaction to his words would have been.

By morning, mother and child (Clara Mary Dent they had named her) were resting comfortably. With the amount of time that the two women spent together, Ellie had been half expecting that her going into labour might have set Hattie's off, but that wasn't the case as Hattie was still complaining about being the size of a house.

Joseph, Beatrice, Margaret, Carina and Roan were a little jealous of the fact that Elizabeth was getting to dote over her granddaughter while they were still waiting for the opportunity, but they all quietened down when Sarah hissed at them that the _only_ thing that mattered was that Hattie and the baby were both fine!

They didn't have long to wait, as it was less than a week later that Hattie went into labour, and her baby had the grace to come during the day. Her labour was a fraction longer than Ellie's at just over six hours, and her baby was bigger, about the same size Sarah's had been when they were born, but Hattie had handled it well and they were both fine which, as Sarah had reminded the grandparents, was all that mattered.

Hattie had a son, and John and Chuck were choked up when they announced his name, John Charles Paterson (Tom admitted that it was meant to be Charles John, but Charles Paterson just hadn't sounded right).

Adele's babies came in the early evening a few days after John, and they came relatively easily for a first birth of twins, Elana Saule Beaumont Bowman was born after six hours of labour, and Michel Auseklis Beaumont Bowman was born fifteen minutes after her. Like their brothers and sisters Elana and Michel were bigger than most twins and showed much the same extraordinary awareness as they had at their births. Aside from being exhausted and drained from the births, Adele was fine so they just let her sleep once she had seen her babies.

Sarah answered the questions people had about their names, saying that at her suggestion Adele had made sure that _she_ chose their first names while Chuck got to choose the middle names. (The pointed look at Chuck as she said that made it quite clear that this was to spare any more children in their immediate family being saddled with names like Clytemnestra.) At the obvious follow up questions she confirmed that they had been named after their godparents, her and Weed, and that their middle names came from an ancient European Sun goddess and god of Dawn. This last had most of the others agreeing that it was better to restrict Chuck to middle names only.

Much though they would have loved to stay, Elizabeth, Margaret and Roan really had to get back to their 'normal' lives and the people who were expecting them, and school was supposed to be starting for Alex any time now as well. Carina, Andre and Kathleen had to go back with them, so a week after Hattie and Tom's son was born, they were all getting ready to head back east.

* * *

The morning that their guests were due to leave, Chuck and Sarah were discussing the significant changes and extensions to the family that had happened over the past year. To them of course, their children and Adele's babies were the biggest events, but there had been so many more!

They'd started work on the house for when Kathleen and Alex (and Lou, Albert and Eliza) would move to Los Angeles and be with the rest of the family.

Another thirty odd girls had been rescued from being enslaved in brothels and added to the family, and Joseph, Scottie and their crew, plus over a dozen more marines had also moved in with their wives, which was nearly forty more people.

Then Ben had found his daughter Johanna who'd been taken away from him thirteen years before, and they'd rescued her and brought her home. Ben and Zondra had married to give Johanna a proper family, and Johanna's grandparents had acquired their place in the family too.

John and Mei had announced that Mei was expecting and they were married as well (partly to keep up appearances for Alex).

Roan had proven himself to the family and had earned his place with them, just as that other old rogue Oncle Andre had.

And then Ellie, Hattie and Adele had added their babies to the nearly thirty babies born to Sarah and the other girls, and Hattie's mother and aunt and Andy's mother had gained their places with the family too.

All in all, their family had grown quite a bit in the past year, by over a third actually. While this was terribly exciting, they were actually looking forward to a quieter year to come.

* * *

After a short side trip to take in the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley and validate Margaret and Elizabeth's official reason for coming to California, John and Mei (and a detachment of troopers) took their visitors home, and there were quite a few to drop off.

The first were Kathleen, Alex and Elizabeth in Connecticut (where Alex made them wait while she dug out her earlier lesson books from Miss Porter's for them to take back for Johanna's lessons, John and Kathleen couldn't keep the pride off their faces when she did that).

Then it was down to New York for Carina to take Margaret home, and they'd forced Carina (over her objections) to accept a Pinkerton escort to take her home to Boston.

Next they swung through Washington to drop Roan off before heading off down through the eastern states to check on the Coburn Plantation and introduce Andre to the staff there (the estate battle was officially won, but they would be defending the estate against claims from women who were swearing that Alexander Senior and John's brothers were their children's fathers for years). Some of the older staff at the plantation actually remembered Andre from back when the Mistress was still with them, because even though their family wouldn't officially recognise him, she'd loved her little brother, and he'd visited her often.

As everything was fine at the plantation, they then headed off to New Orleans to deliver Andre, and then they were to head up through Memphis etc to meet the Transcontinental Railroad, and hence back to California. All in all, this trip was expected to take them five to six weeks by the time they had returned to Los Angeles.

* * *

Chuck and Sarah were still taking their morning strolls with the children, though since they could sit up by themselves, the original low basket on the baby carriage had been replaced with a deeper padded basket, with two of the children sitting at each end, chattering away generally.

As soon as Ellie, Hattie and Adele felt up joining in, Chuck, Sarah and their little darlings started getting more company on their morning strolls again as Scottie had taken time out of his myriad engineering projects to build two more baby carriages, though these were rather smaller and simpler than the quads' (which had been modified again to carry Elana and Michel as well). A large part of what prompted the dour Scot to make the almost unprecedented move (for him) to diverge from his plans to make those baby carriages was that he and Annella had never managed to have children and they loved Tom like the son they'd never had. So this had been mostly for Scottie's defacto grandson, a lot of people had been anxiously waiting for John Charles Paterson to arrive.

They all noted how right it felt for them to be getting back to their morning strolls together, as this had become all but a ritual for them when they were at the hacienda, starting the day together with a stroll and quiet company. At the moment they were missing John and Mei as they were still wandering around the country on trains, and when Ellie, Hattie and Adele's pregnancies had progressed to the point where they weren't comfortable walking, they and their husbands had dropped out, but having most of the core group together to start the day again somehow made things more right with the world.

Sarah and Chuck were filling in for Mei and helping Anna out with the Dragons and troopers' fighting training, which Johanna, Zondra, Ben, Tom and Andy had joined in as well, and Ellie, Hattie and Adele were getting back into now. Zondra had been surprised by Ellie and Adele's proficiency when she first saw how good they were, until Sarah explained how she, Chuck and John had been training Ellie from the start of this adventure, and Adele had joined in a few months later when they met her.

Since Sarah had recognised the benefits that she could accrue from the hard work of these trainings back when they were trying to release tension before they blew in New Orleans, she'd been following her training regimes diligently, by herself if she wasn't working with the girls and the others. This kept her to the shape that both she and Chuck were most pleased with, and meant that very few men could stand up to her too.

* * *

With the quieter period of the farm work that they'd enjoyed since they'd returned after the trials, Sarah had given Chuck leave to spend some time working with Scottie on his airship. Once he'd finished the Elana, Scottie took over Chuck's desperate airship project at the point that John and the others had forced Chuck to leave it before their children were born, using the improved designs that he'd worked with Chuck to refine (lengthening it by over 50%, moving the engines and outboard propellers to midships and the like). He and his team had been working on the ship for most of the time that Chuck and the others were occupied in New Orleans and Washington.

Work on the airship had proceeded rather more quickly after Joshua had finished the new building to house it as it had already started to outgrow the roundhouse by the time John and the girls forced Chuck to stop working on his crazy idea. This 'Cloud House' had been built up in the lee of the hills behind the hacienda to reduce the effect of the wind on the airship as it manoeuvred in and out of its house. The Cloud House was covered with a couple of feet of dirt, which had then in turn been seeded and watered until it had a reasonable ground cover and as that settled in they let the cattle, horses, mules, donkeys etc graze over it.

One part of the Cloud House that Scottie did leave to Chuck was the clockwork engines used to open and close the doors at each end and operate the winches inside (as well as the clockwork gas pumps and the like for the airship itself). Scottie had over twenty years of steam engine experience on Chuck, but Chuck had had more experience in clockwork, even before he'd acquired the Daemon's memories. For short pieces of light work, the clockwork engines actually had the edge over steam, as there was no fuel, working fluid, wait time to warm up the boilers etc to worry about. There was no mess and no wait with the clockwork engines, which was why they operated a lot of the equipment around the hacienda (and on the boats). Chuck had even built a small clockwork locomotive for moving the cars and equipment around, which also incorporated a crane for lifting things on and off the cars. Weed kept saying that one day electric engines would take over from clockwork, but while he may have that right, for the now no electric engine was powerful enough to do any real work.

The time that Scottie, his engineers and their helpers had managed to put into the airship had definitely borne results, as all the frameworks that Chuck had designed were now finished and put together, as was the gondola cabin. Scottie had used his steam turbine designs as templates for the lightweight, powerful, highly efficient naphtha vapor turbine engines and transmissions to drive the Cloud's two large sets of contra-rotating propellers (independently or together), and they were progressing well on the gas envelope, gas bags and apparatus as well.

The vapor turbines were what had taken much of Scottie's time, because converting the technology he'd created for a viable and efficient steam turbine into making a viable and efficient naphtha vapor turbine hadn't been easy. He'd already covered some of the work when he was improving his naphtha vapor engines with Chuck's boiler concepts, but he'd had to change from light naphtha to heavy naphtha to get the pressure high enough to bring the efficiency up, sort out how to create and work this new stainless steel for the turbine blades and do a plethora of other things to make this work, but he did, and he'd created an engine that was light, powerful and efficient enough to make Chuck's airship viable.

Of course, even with leave from Sarah to devote time to the airship, that didn't amount to much as there was little respite from the ever increasing stream of dispatches from Washington that 'had' to be looked at urgently, and on top of that, as Roan had noted to John, he'd brought along quite a large trunk packed solid with more paperwork from Uncle Sam to be addressed, they were told that this was equivalent of over a month of dispatches, but it was more like two months' worth, truth be told. As a result, Chuck's 'free time' was rather a limited commodity and much of that was devoted to Sarah and their darlings (with time for Adele and the twins as well, as they knew what kind of support the mothers of Daemons' children needed now).

* * *

Now that their babies had been born, Ellie and Hattie were covering nearly all of Johanna's lesson time in the library (or courtyard, or gardens), and Hattie and Adele were covering the brunt of Johanna's language lessons, so these matters were largely off Chuck and Sarah's plates, at least.

Chuck and Sarah generally had their little darlings in the office with them while they were working, but the kids bored quickly with the quiet atmosphere in the office (especially with Chuck and Sarah trying to block them from seeing much of what came from the recollections that the material they were looking at triggered), and would generally toddle out into the courtyard before too long. So long as they knew where they were their parents didn't worry over much about this, besides which, it gave them the excuse to take a break to go to 'check on them' often.

Sarah hadn't done this (wading through dispatches and recording any relevant information from what they recollected) for anywhere near as long as Chuck had, but it hadn't taken her long to pretty much repeat the question that she'd asked him when she came to after she'd first acquired the Daemon's memories. "How do you do it Chuck? How do you take having this type of thing in your head all the time?"

He'd just taken her into his arms and murmured that they didn't have many options. "We have this in our heads now, so we either use what we know to help Uncle Sam and others, or we hide away somewhere in hope that we don't see anything that will trigger the recollections."

He offered her that choice, and Sarah knew that if she'd said the word, they would go away somewhere and leave this world behind them, just them, Adele and their children. She also knew that if they did that, being separated from Ellie would leave a hole in him that nothing could fill, because she didn't believe that Andy would walk away from his responsibilities to his troopers or his country, any more than Chuck could if it wasn't for her and the children. They were being ground between the rock of their duty and the hard place of the life they wanted, and had earned through what they'd already done for Uncle Sam and the country.

Eventually Sarah did what her heart was urging her to (because the frequency and volume of these 'urgent' dispatches had been increasing ever since their children were born), she lashed out at Uncle Sam in a telegram that she sent without Chuck's knowledge.

'Enough! Stop this flood of meaningless so called urgent dispatches or my husband and I will be forced to disappear to get away from them! The vast majority of these items that you are sending to us are NOT related to any significant plots or conspiracies, and the vast teams of people that you have at your disposal in Washington SHOULD have been capable of determining that with little effort. While this flood of filth that you require us to review generates little information of value to you or the country however, it DOES generate considerable torment for us, and the feeling of need to clean ourselves in places that we cannot reach to clean. You have one week from today to begin, and one month to finish, reducing the dispatches sent to us to investigate to ONLY those matters where there is strong confidence that they have a direct connection to events of great import, and this importance is confirmed by OUR investigations, or we will disappear. If we are forced to do this you will lose us and our services FOREVER! Black Widow'

After she'd sent the Telegram, she told Chuck what she'd done, and they sat down to discuss what they needed to do. Neither of them had any real expectation that Uncle Sam would be able to meet Sarah's demands, so if they didn't want it to be nothing more than an empty threat, they had to ready themselves and their family to disappear.

Chuck's first choice for this was the Memphis Cloud (as they'd called the airship), but she hadn't been completed, let alone tested yet so there was little hope that she'd be ready in time for Sarah's deadline (though Scottie and his engineering team did commit to focussing on completing the Cloud, in hope of getting her done early enough to be used for the escape). That left the Memphis Belle and Elana as their only real options to get away.

While they didn't think that they could ask Tom, Andy or their men to turn their backs on their duty, they did hope that John and Mei would stay with them, and Chuck got cuffed across the head by John for even asking that. Adele and the twins would of course be coming with them, and more than a few of the others said that they would be coming as well when they were quietly asked. There was a heated argument when Tom, Hattie, Ellie and the others discovered that they had decided that they would have to choose duty over family without asking them, because with few exceptions they chose family. With that cleared up, the discussions went to who would stay at the hacienda and look after the people there when the others left.

Luckily, the refitting of the Belle (and possibly Elana) to make them into something that the ones leaving could live on for extended periods didn't require much from the engineers, so they continued concentrating on completing the Cloud while the boats were being refitted. They actually had the Cloud to the point of making their initial tethered flight trials (inside the Cloud House) two weeks after Sarah sent the telegram. As expected with something as experimental and radical as the Cloud, these trials revealed a number of areas that required amendments, so they went back to work.

It was over a week more before she was ready for real flight trials outside the Cloud House, and when she was, they found more things that needed to be changed, such the fact that both the vertical and horizontal rudders were too small to be effective in flight. This was significant enough to force them to go back and revise the overall design. Chuck addressed this by taking away the single horizontal rudder in front of the gondola and replacing it with a pair of them on either side towards each end of the gondola. Similarly, the original centre mounted vertical rudder was removed and replaced by a pair of them mounted behind the two sets of contra-rotating propellers to act on the airflow from the propellers.

* * *

These changes took another three weeks to effect, which pushed them well past the deadline that Sarah had given Uncle Sam, but the volume of the dispatches they received had in fact dropped off significantly within the week that she'd first stipulated (to allow for the dispatches in transit), and it had subsequently continued to be further reduced as per her requirements. She conceded that Uncle Sam had largely met her requirements by that point, and they thankfully put their plans to run on hold (neither of them had wanted to leave most of the family behind, it was just that the filth that they had to wade through daily was too much for Sarah, she couldn't understand how Chuck could have done this for so long and remained his true sweet self).

The volume of dispatches had been replaced by the flood of telegrams from Uncle Sam and Roan, pleading for forgiveness for having allowed the situation to develop to this point without picking up on it, and pleading for them to stay. These messages also included their promises that they would never allow it to get to that point again, as between them they were now personally reviewing every dispatch before it was sent, along with the justification for it being sent.

What the dispatches they were receiving now brought up by way of recollections was no more wholesome than what they had been looking at before, but the volume of what they were expected to review was no more than a small fraction of what it had been previously, so it was a load that they could bear more easily.

As the letters that they received from Uncle Sam and Roan explained, their primary fault had been in failing to keep an eye on what was being forwarded to the team. They'd established protocols that stipulated that only matters of import in regard to the conspiracies that the team had played such a large role in destroying were to be sent to them, but they hadn't monitored this as they'd presumed that the senior officials they'd left in charge could be trusted to comply with their instructions. What had in fact had been happening though was that these senior officials had begun forwarding anything and everything that they wished additional information on to the team, as the information that came back was helping them progress their cases with less effort on their part.

Where they could prove that these officials had acted inappropriately and/or had deliberately misinterpreted their orders in this, they were dismissed, but unfortunately they could rarely put together enough solid evidence of this to push dismissals through. The best Uncle Sam could do in most cases was order that those individuals _never_ be associated with any function to do with him ever again.


	12. Cloud Nine

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.**

With President Grant's support, Roan reassigned the ones that he couldn't officially punish into dead end roles where they couldn't cause more trouble, and he'd never have to deal with them again. He did incur quite a bit of trouble over one incident though, as the official had thought that his position was secure enough for him to be safe to taunt Roan, who most of his fellow 'respected' officials thought was a joke.

When Roan had berated him for wilfully ignoring the instructions he'd been given, he'd laughed in his face, saying. "You don't tell me how to run my section Montgomery, I'll use whatever resources I have at my disposal to get results! However they got that information, it has let me close out some old cases that I couldn't get off my books before, so there's no way you or anyone else is going to stop me from using them!"

Roan looked at him as he fought to hold in the reaction that he so ardently wanted to give, and only when he had himself under control did he respond. "No, you won't be using them, or any other information source again Hopkins, because as of today, you are no longer the head of this section, or part of the intelligence services at all for that matter, and your clearance to access government information has been revoked."

The man's eyes bulged out as he began screaming at Roan in a rage. "You can't do that Montgomery! I know people! I'll have you thrown out of here you pathetic gigolo!"

Roan had himself under control by now so he just laughed at him. "You're obviously working under some delusion that my predecessor who gave you that position can somehow help you now, but I can assure you that neither he nor anyone else can keep you in that position. Clear out your desk Hopkins, you'll be starting in custodial services tomorrow running some minor group, I think sanitation would be about your speed…. yes, I think that will do nicely." He turned away, still struggling to keep a lid on his temper, but the next rant thrown at him destroyed any chance of that.

"You won't get away with this you gutter crawler! You can't push _proper_ officials around like this just because some of your women friends have gotten their drawers in a twist…. Oh I forgot... The type of women that _you_ associate with never wear them, do they?"

The momentum as Roan spun, combined with the force of his arm as he drove his fist up from his hip, pulverised the man's face, smashing his jaw, nose and cheekbone. The man's friends, who'd come to cheer him on as he faced down this upstart, made the mistake of attacking Roan then, but they were all political appointments who'd never shot off anything more than their mouths. When they attacked Roan, they discovered that someone who had been one of the best field agents the Union had in the war doesn't forget what to do in a hurry and in less than ten minutes, all six of them were on the floor in varying states of injury and consciousness.

Roan stood over his first victim, calmly wiping the blood off of his hands as he addressed him. "As a matter of fact, yes, a number of ladies whom I have the privilege of calling friends were quite upset about this business, as were their husbands, so you'd better hope that I don't repeat your comments about the ladies' undergarments to _them_. For your information, a number of the people involved have been the government's top operatives since the early days of the war, several of them are decorated war heroes, and the President himself has gotten personally involved to ensure that this business is being properly addressed."

He looked around at the dumbfounded staff and the soldiers he'd brought with him, who were all staring at him, before he continued.

"So as I said, he" (pointing at the man at his feet) "will start in custodial services…. When he is able to return to work now I suppose, so clean out his desk and send his personal things, _ONLY_ his personal things, to his home..." He paused as he looked around the office and pointed at one of the more belligerent looking men in the room. "You! Advise the payroll people that he is _NOT_ to be paid for his time off work and that his new position is the head of sanitation in government custodial services so they are to adjust his pay rate accordingly, effective immediately. I dare say that he will have to start watching his pennies now, because his new salary will be considerably less than his old one was. You will also remind him, and pass word on to the rest of the intelligence services, that all his access to government information has been revoked as of today so if he's found with any sensitive government information in his possession, he and whoever gave him access to it will be behind bars before they can spit. They will remain there for some time, in fact we'll probably throw away the key, and the same thing will happen to _you_ unless I see formal confirmation that this has been done before the week's out."

"Now as you all witnessed, these" (indicating the other five to the soldiers) "have attacked the Chief of the Secret Service, so you will take them away and lock them up until we can get the proper specialists in to…. _Question_ them, and determine whether they were working in league with any of the treasonous organisations that we're currently trying to root out. What we get out of them may mean bringing others in as well." He added that last as he looked down at the man groaning at his feet.

He looked around the room again, and everyone there saw a very different Roan Montgomery from the man that they thought they knew. This man was hard, in control, and not to be trifled with! No-one would _EVER_ think of laughing in this version of Roan Montgomery's face, as so many had done previously.

"Gentlemen, and ladies…." (he gave his nod to the ladies the grace of bow) "I believe you know what you have to do, so I would suggest that you get to it!" At that, everyone began to scurry about. Two of the men hoisted their former boss to his feet and hustled him out of the office (just as far as the front door of the building, where they dumped him out onto the sidewalk and hurried back), while the soldiers dragged the other five off to the cells and the women and some of the men hurried to his office to clear it out. Mindful of Roan's instructions, only a small box of his personal things was parcelled up and send to his home.

* * *

Roan was feeling a better about himself than he had in some time as he headed back to his own office, he knew that there would be repercussions over this, but he was almost looking forward to the coming fray. As soon as he arrived in his office, he sent a message to Uncle Sam to advise him what had happened. He also sent messages off to the six who would replace the men he had just removed from their positions.

He smiled as he sent off the formal advice to the replacement for the man he'd gone to confront, as this one had actually been signed off by the powers that be before he'd gone to see the man. Roan knew that her first inclination would be to tell him to go to hell, but he also knew that she'd stop and look into the role before she said anything, and she'd see that while she'd have to deal with him, she wouldn't report to him, and that the role was more of a peer than a subordinate to him. She'd been quite an effective field operative in the war, but more to the point she had proven herself more capable of effectively managing information and operations than most men, and it was her record for this that he'd used to convince the powers that be that she was the best person for job.

There had been quite a few questions about why she had disappeared for nearly two years at the end of the war, but he'd spun them a convincing yarn about her going off to pursue other opportunities when she couldn't get the recognition and consideration she deserved from the government. He knew that this was a lie, but also knew that she was sufficiently adept at covering her tracks that no-one would ever discover the truth, that she had in fact gone off to have a baby after the father had told her that he couldn't leave the important work that he was doing at the end of the war. He had no idea what had come of the baby, but was sure that Diane would have ensured that it went to a good home before she returned to intelligence work.

As he knew she would, Diane accepted the role once she'd looked into it carefully, and she was far more effective in the role than her predecessor had been. Even though she avoided dealing with him face to face unless they were part of a larger assembly, Roan was happy to see her in her rightful place as a driving force in the intelligence community at last.

As expected, his arbitrary removal of six political appointments created considerable furore, but his ire was still up from the incident, so he just brusquely told the panel of senators that he'd been called before to explain his actions. "As per the President's orders, in the wake of the recent conspiracy problems I have been charged with cleaning house of any and all questionable characters in our intelligence services. The actions of those six were certainly questionable, so all but one of them are currently being held, awaiting investigation. At this time, we are attempting to get trusted investigators released from their other duties and brought in for that purpose. If the delays in resolving this are causing issues, perhaps we would be better served bringing in the sponsors of those men so they can all be questioned together, to wind the matter up more quickly?"

As he knew full well it would, that suggestion was enough to have the whole matter immediately dropped with the request from the panel that they be advised of the outcome of the investigations, as over half of that panel had been made up of the sponsors of those six men, and there was no way that they were about to let themselves be dragged down with them, especially when they were certain that the men didn't know enough to cause them any significant trouble.

* * *

That was why Roan was now in the position of sending the names of the men he'd deposed and their sponsors to Chuck and Sarah with the query of whether they were in fact part of any of the Culper Ring or others' conspiracies, or whether they were just power mongers and their puppets, seeking personal gain. After agonising over the decision for a couple of days, he sent the dispatch about them off to California, but he also sent coded messages via Hattie to explain to them why he was apparently deviating from Sarah's strict conditions.

A week and a half later, Roan was surprised by a knock on the door of his home one night and when he opened the door he was shocked to find Chuck standing there. When Roan didn't move, Chuck motioned into the house and asked if he may come in? That managed to break Roan out of his stupor and he quickly moved aside, hastening Chuck inside. Looking out as he closed the door, Roan saw what appeared to be someone sitting in a buggy in the shadows out front of the house.

Roan had no end of questions about how he'd gotten there but Chuck cut him off, saying that there was no time for that as he launched into his recitation of the information that Roan had requested. Over half of the sponsors and a few of the men he'd deposed did indeed have connections to the Culper Ring and the Knights of the Golden Circle, and Chuck gave him the details he needed to locate the evidence that would bring them down through the Secret Service. When he'd told Roan all this, he handed over the documentation package that they'd put together and turned to leave.

When Roan tried to stop him from going, Chuck reiterated that there was no time for this, so Roan just cut to the chase and told him about the recent appointment of Diane Beckman as the head of a related intelligence section, and asked if they could see their way clear to provide assistance to her where possible, as a personal favour to him.

Chuck stopped suddenly when he said her name and looked at him strangely, asking. "What qualified this woman for the job?"

Roan looked at him defiantly. "Her experience and ability! This appointment was because she was the best person for the job, and others are already seeing that."

* * *

Chuck just nodded before hurrying out of the house without another word. He climbed into the waiting vapour buggy, releasing the brake and driving off without delay.

Bill kept a lookout as he drove, but even though there was no sign of anyone following them they changed direction several times once they were out of town to throw off anyone they might have missed. They turned off the road a ways out of town to head across country until they came upon something large back in the hills, the Memphis Cloud.

Scottie had fired up the vapour turbines' boilers as soon as they were sighted, so Chuck drove the buggy up the ramp into gondola and lashed it down in the rear of the cabin as the airship came to life around them. Crewmen climbed up into the bottom of the gas envelope to open the valves and release the hydrogen from the cylinders where it was stored to fill the gas bags. As the vapour plant warmed up, a network of tubing under the gas bags piped the waste heat from the boilers through the lifting gas area to heat the gas bags and air in the envelope and increase the lift. All in all, it was less than twenty minutes before the Memphis Cloud was ready to lift off and when she was, the crew released the last of the mooring ropes and away she went.

Once the Cloud had risen above the treetops, they engaged the propellers and set the horizontal rudders to allow them to climb high enough that they needn't fear running into anything before they brought her up to speed. The navigator set their course by the compass and the map, monitoring their height by way of a precise barometer. Every half hour (more frequently at times), one of the crew would climb the ladder to the top of the envelope to make a sighting and confirm that they hadn't been blown off course.

If nothing else, there was one thing that they'd certainly confirmed with this first major voyage of the Cloud, it was by far the fastest way to travel! They'd completed the trip from Los Angeles to Washington in less than two days, and were hoping that the journey home would be made in a similar time frame.

Chuck was discussing the benefits and shortcomings of the airship with Joseph and Scottie on the way back. The obvious benefit was the fact that they could cut nearly a week from the time to go from the hacienda to Washington where Uncle Sam and the others were based. The most obvious disadvantage was the fact that they couldn't afford to let anyone to see it, but there were others as well. When it came to carrying serious freight, the fact that after fuel, the Cloud's payload was little more than six or seven tons, ten at the most, made her of little use in that respect, just carrying the lightweight buggy took up almost a third of a ton of that, and as yet they didn't know how she'd behave in bad weather, or indeed whether she could fly at all in those conditions.

Even given those issues though, Joseph and Scottie were excited about the possibilities of this craft, as to be able to carry a group of people clear across the country in only two days or so, it boggled the mind. They were also quick to point out to Chuck that they had trains and the Belle to carry freight, so they didn't need the Cloud to be a cargo ship, what they had a need for was a fast transport that could get them places their other transports couldn't, and she certainly was that!

Chuck was still arguing that they should be able to do better, but the ridiculousness of the situation was brought home by Bill's laughter. As Bill had been listening in on this discussion he'd started to chuckle, but that had quickly escalated into a full blown laugh. When Chuck asked him what was so funny he'd struggled to get himself under control, and then just said. " _You!_ "

That of course demanded an explanation, so Bill had asked Joseph. "Captain, could you tell me where we are please Sir?"

Joseph had looked at him, puzzled, but went to check the instruments and chart and came back to say. "We're at approximately ten thousand feet over Missouri, travelling in a south westerly direction at fifty knots."

Bill nodded, saying "Thank you Sir" then turning back to Chuck he said.

"That's why, we're in a ship that you designed," (he turned to Scottie) "didn't he Scottie?"

"Aye, the Cloud's mostly the laddie's design!"

Bill nodded his thanks and grabbed Chuck's arm to drag him over to the window, and pointing at the ground far below them that they were passing over said. "And we're travelling across Missouri at a pace that few trains can match _without_ being restricted to going where the rails go, way up in the sky! But the Captain and Scottie are trying to convince _you_ of how special the Cloud is? That's ridiculous!"

Both Joseph and Scottie chuckled at that, and Scottie added "He's got ye there, laddie! And by the way, yon fifty knots is just her efficient cruising speed, we can get at least twenty knots more out of her at full speed."

Chuck shook his head as he gave a wry grin, looking down at the terrain passing so far below them. "OK... perhaps Bill does have a point…. I have to admit that it's one hell of a way to travel up here!"

* * *

They were back at the hacienda in less than two days, timing it to come in over any settled areas after dark. As they closed in on the hacienda, the men engaged the clockwork pumps to start pumping the hydrogen out of the gas bags and store it in the cylinders, which caused the Cloud to descend, and she touched down not too far from the opening of the building built for her.

Unfortunately, due to a gust of wind just as she was landing, she wasn't well enough lined up to the building to drive her straight in with her propellers, so they decided to wait for someone to bring up Goliath, Bathsheba, Jezebel and Salome, harnessed in pairs, to have them haul her around, and hence on into her house.

Scottie waved them off when they said that they'd wait for him, saying that he'd be down once he'd shut her down and put her away, so they headed down to the house, to find most of them still up. Everyone wanted to know how the Cloud had gone, and Chuck waved to Joseph to respond.

Joseph's first words were, "I have to say that it was an unqualified success!" but he'd gone on, drawing on Bill and the others, even Chuck, to describe their impressions.

Sarah was excited for Chuck (and was dying to have a flight on the Cloud herself), but when Chuck asked what he'd missed while he was away, she was just as excited to tell him what their children had been getting up to. This showed how much they'd been drowning under that flood of so-called 'urgent' dispatches every day, as they hadn't had enough time to devote to their own children until Sarah's explosion had cut that flood of missives to a fraction of what it had been before. They'd been forced to take time away from their children to meet the demands of their job, but that was not going to happen again!

When they were alone, Chuck told Sarah about Diane Beckman, the woman Roan had just had instated as his equivalent in another intelligence section, and who hadn't talked to him since he'd chosen his duty over her at the end of the war when she told him she was carrying their baby. The memories that Sarah had acquired had more to say about Diane Beckman, as did her own, because when that name triggered recollections of her and she saw images of the woman's face, she realised that she'd dealt with her in the Confederacy when she'd been down there undercover as Roan was.

As they discussed this woman, they agreed that she'd been no more likely to settle down and raise a family than Roan, which had been proven by the fact that she'd left raising the babe to someone else and gone back to intelligence work. It was also obvious that the reason for her continued animosity against Roan was pride and spite, as it had been a blow to her pride for him to choose his duty over her even though they were two of kind in that respect.

* * *

They were still discussing the matter, on and off, a couple of days later when they received a request from Uncle Sam for them to come to Washington, to discuss the direction their operations were to go in the future.

When the request arrived for them to come to Washington, Chuck asked Scottie how the Cloud had fared on her first major voyage. Scottie's response was that, aside from a cracked spoke in one of her front wheels (this had been one of Scottie's suggestions, to add six wheels, 36" high with a 4" wide rim, down each side to allow her to be moved about easily when she was on the ground), which had already been repaired, she'd held up fine. All she needed to be ready to go again was to be refuelled, she didn't even need to have the lifting gas topped up as they hadn't lost more than a smidge of the gas in the two landings they'd done.

Chuck had nodded at that, and they'd gone out to the Cloud House to go over the lightweight vapour buggy again carefully and determine the best way to carry three or four of them aboard the Cloud.

The one he'd driven into town that night had been the prototype, and it was a strange looking contraption indeed. It could probably be best described as a sprung buckboard, a veneered balsa wood platform and framework with a sprung undercarriage and vapour engine bolted underneath, while the driver's seat, foot section and controls were a simpler version of the vapour landau's. Three removable padded seats were bolted to the platform, and it could also serve as a cargo carrier with them removed.

The buggy's appearance lacked much in elegance and style, but it was quite functional and weighed less than half as much as most horse buggies. The balsa wood platform, frame and seats, and the lightweight aluminium front axle perch and steel springs were only a fraction of the weight of what was normally used, and the new vapour plant and drive that Scottie had created for this was as light and compact as possible, with the boiler to one side of the drive gear, and the engine and gearbox to the other (this plant was such an improvement that Scottie was in the process of converting their existing vapour carriages to use it as well). They were also using the lightweight wire wheels with pneumatic tyres that they'd created for the vapour carriages.

The drive into Washington had been a test of the buggy's performance, handling and strength, and so far it looked like it had held up remarkably well in all respects. They didn't know how the passengers would feel about sitting above the driver, but they were prepared to live with any complaints if it worked out.

With that determined, Chuck went back to discuss the plans for the trip while Scottie got his people started on building the other three buggies they wanted to take to Washington. It was quickly confirmed that the message from Uncle Sam was asking for the whole team to attend these meetings in Washington, which meant over a dozen people and eight babies for a start (Johanna was put out that she couldn't go, but accepted that this was work). When they added in a protective detail to go with them and security for the Cloud while they were there, even without the babies that was over three dozen passengers with weapons and luggage (not to mention the four buggies), so they'd be loading up the Cloud far more than they had to date. There was no question of using anything but the Cloud for this, partly to make it a quick trip, but mostly because the rest of the family wanted to experience travelling on her.

While Scottie's men and the carpenters hastily completed the other three buggies, they refuelled the Cloud, stocked her with food and water, and negotiated via telegrams with General Cranston the agreement to keep his people away from one area of his farm for a few days.

* * *

All of this took no more than two days, so the Memphis Cloud was hauled out of the Cloud House a few hours after the sun set on the second day and the four vapour buggies were driven on board and tied down while Scottie fired up the vapour turbines' boilers and they began releasing hydrogen into the gas bags.

As the gas bags were filling, most of them were outside, looking at the Cloud in the moonlight. As long as the Memphis Belle, she wasn't the sleekest thing, in fact she looked more than a little ungainly with the two dozen gas bags bulging out of the sides, top and bottom of the white envelope. The only really 'lost' space inside the envelope was the three ladders surrounded by lightweight frameworks that rose to the top of the envelope to allow them to make navigation sightings or check the top of the envelope, and the small amount of working space around the six points where the lifting gas was managed with the gas valves and pumps.

To prevent losing heat from the envelope when they did the sightings or whatever, there was a chamber, just four feet deep and two foot across, at the top each ladder through the envelope. Once the men reached this chamber, they pulled closed and latched the hatch in the base of this chamber before opening the top hatch. To facilitate opening and closing the top hatches at speed, these were swivelled to the side rather than lifted. There were similar chambers at the bottom of the envelope for the six points where the lifting gas was managed for the same purpose.

The Cloud's appearance was a large part of where her name had come from, because they'd believed that the lumpy white form would look like a cloud from the ground, and she did indeed at that. To this end, the gondola, wheels and everything else had also been painted with the same flat white paint as the envelope, to make them blend in with the envelope better.

When the Cloud started to pull at the mooring ropes, everyone was hustled aboard, and about ten minutes later the crewmen let the ropes go and she lifted away. In accordance with the by now standard process, the crewmen quickly hauled the ropes in and closed the doors as she rose straight up until she was clear of any nearby obstacles, and then Scottie engaged the propellers to move her forward, with the horizontal rudders set to push her higher. Once she'd risen high enough that they were confident not to run into anything, the Captain called for Scottie to bring the speed up until they were heading East towards Arizona at ten thousand feet, cruising at her usual fifty knots.

Most of their passengers, including the quads (Ellie, Hattie and Adele's babies were mainly sleeping), were excited as they watched the moonlit landscape passing by underneath them. Even Chuck and Bill, who'd done this trip, weren't immune to the excitement of travelling through the sky at a great rate of knots (personally, Chuck doubted that he'd become blasé about this for a long time, if ever).

What cabins there were on the Cloud were down the centreline of the gondola. Given that paper panels made up a significant portion of the 'walls' (to allow light into them from the windows around the outer walls and keep the weight to a minimum), they couldn't really be called 'private' though, they were mainly to give the semblance of privacy. Similarly, for the most part, the 'bunks' were hammocks (which led to quite a bit of laughter as couples were trying to climb in together without dumping themselves out onto the floor that first night), as this was the lightest and most convenient form of bedding, though bedrolls were being used as well.

In the morning, when everyone rose, after a stop in one of the rudimentary toilet/washroom facilities (the toilets were just seats over a hole in the floor, as the engineers had agreed that their calculations confirmed that nothing disagreeable would reach the surface in that state from ten thousand feet up), the passengers were largely stuck to the available windows so that they could watch the world go by.

Their sustenance on this trip was plainer fare than they were used to as the cooking facilities on the Cloud were limited to the heating stoves around the gondola (not that anyone doubted that Adele or Ellie could have cooked up a feast on these if they'd wanted to), but the trip would take less than two days, so being restricted to simpler food and coffee for that time was no great hardship. Even with the more basic facilities available to them on the Cloud, none would argue that it felt rather grand, standing at the window with a coffee or drink in hand as they watched the world go by beneath them. As they stood on the bridge (the best place to watch the scenery, with the glass right across the curved front of the gondola), Chuck explained how they flew the Cloud, and it was little surprise to the others that Sarah and Ellie were among the most interested. When Sarah asked why the horizontal rudders operated separately, Chuck asked if she remembered how the Memphis Belle had heeled over in the sharp turns the Captain was calling for when they went up against those Brazilian warships? She nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Well, we found the Cloud does much the same if we just use the vertical rudders to turn her sharply at speed, and she slips sideways to boot, but if we turn the inside horizontal rudder down and the outside one up, she'll heel in to turn neatly and surely, so we separated the controls to allow us to do that."

Sarah nodded at that, as this made sense, and Chuck finished with a basic description of how the movements of that pole which looked like a vertical tiller operated the four horizontal rudders via a system of cables and pulleys under the floor.

They reached Washington coming up to dusk on the second day, using telescopes to confirm where they'd be putting her down while it was still light, then they drifted around at ten thousand feet until the light was gone. When it was dark enough, they engaged the gas pumps and slowly headed back to their destination. As soon as she touched down (smoothly, as they were getting the knack of this), crewmen jumped out to secure the mooring lines as the pumps were sucking the gas out of the gas bags. The crewmen up at the gas valves shut off the valve for each gas bag as it was sucked empty, disengaging the pumps and shutting off the master valve on each gas cylinder when all of the gas bags attached to that pump and cylinder were near enough to empty.

* * *

While the crewmen were shutting down the Cloud, the others were unloading the buggies. With everyone helping, it wasn't much over fifteen minutes before the buggies were ready to go, with their luggage tied in beneath the seats.

Given that it was Washington that they were heading into, they took a dozen troopers with them (three per buggy), so it was a little crowded on the trip into Washington, and it would be more so on the way back as they'd have John and Mei with them as well then (their party had been re-routed to Washington from New Orleans, so they were already there).

As expected they caused a stir, arriving without notice at the President's House well after dark as they did, but the Captain of the Guard recognised them and had them inside quick smart. It didn't take long to get Uncle Sam, John and Mei down, and they were soon being escorted to the residential wing, while the troopers headed off to the guards' quarters where the rest of their troopers from the train were after the buggies had been put away.

Uncle Sam of course questioned how they'd gotten there so quickly, but they feigned weariness and escaped to their rooms as soon as they'd greeted Aunt Julia. After things had settled down, John and Mei slipped into Chuck, Sarah and Adele's rooms to get the story of what was going on. They told them as much as they knew about the current visit and Sarah filled them in on what had happened after she'd given Uncle Sam her ultimatum. Then John smirked at Chuck and asked. "So, how did the Cloud go?"

Sarah rolled her eyes at Mei and Adele as Chuck began his enthusiastic description, as they all knew that this was exactly the response John had been looking for. Mei shared a smile with Sarah and Adele about the men's habits, but Sarah and Adele felt compelled to add their own comments about how incredible the Cloud was as well.

* * *

The next morning, they launched straight into meetings with Uncle Sam, Roan, and this new intelligence head, Miss Diane Beckman, but these discussions kept bogging down. Sarah and Chuck felt a little guilty about the looks that Diane kept darting at their children, as they knew that she was thinking of her own daughter.

Suddenly Sarah asked. "She's eight, isn't she?"

Diane (and Roan) looked sharply at her and Diane asked. "What are you talking about Missus Barton?"

"Your daughter, Josephine Rowan Lovegood, she's eight now, isn't she?"

"I don't know what you're talking about madam!"

Sarah smoothed Castor's hair as he and Nessie sat in her lap, invariably it was her favourite and his sister most like him who gravitated to her, while Helen and Pollux gravitated to Chuck for the same reason.

"Miss Beckman, we have no intention of staying in Washington any longer than we need to, but these discussions are going nowhere at this point so I am trying to move things along by proving to you the scope of the information that we have at our disposal... And no, Josephine's father did not tell us this, I doubt that he knows, well….. knew her full name prior to this, sorry."

She shot the woman an apologetic look before she continued. "Josephine was conceived in the latter stages of the war while the two of you were working undercover in the Confederacy, may I say that the years have been kind to you by the way? You have hardly aged in the eleven years since I first saw you. You and Mister Montgomery had a falling out when you discovered that you were carrying his baby, but he believed that his duty to the country had to take precedence over raising a family at that time... you may be interested to know that he thinks of you as the one he wronged because of that. You went off to the estates of a second cousin for the remainder of your pregnancy and Josephine's first year then, when she was a little over twelve months old, you gave her up to a married cousin who couldn't have children so that she could get a proper family upbringing, you see her when you can as her 'Aunt Diane'. Now, may we continue with the business that we all came here for?"

Most of the people in the room (including Uncle Sam) were looking from Sarah to Diane in confusion, Diane and Roan were staring at Sarah in shock and anger, and Chuck was watching Diane with compassion and concern as she had crumpled in on herself, appearing for the first time as the tiny, no longer young woman that she was, as she had been stripped of the force of will which normally made her appear larger than life.

After about ten minutes, Diane gathered herself and gave Sarah a look of reproach. "That was most unkind Missus Barton, however you have achieved what I believe and hope was your intention. I now understand and accept that you do indeed have access to far more secret information than I could have ever believed possible. Indeed, let us get on with the business at hand now."

"I am sorry if I have caused you pain Miss Beckman, that truly was not my intention though I must admit that I understood that it was quite probable that my raising this may do so. My reason for doing this was that I felt the need to force you to accept that we have access to information that normal reason would hold that we cannot, if we are to succeed in the endeavour that Uncle Sam wishes us to embark upon. I also believe that if we are to do this, there are other secrets that you should be aware of."

As she said this, she looked at the the others (she already had Chuck's agreement via the link between them), and received nods from Uncle Sam, John, Ben, Zondra, Hattie, Mei and Adele as the ones with the secrets she was about to expose.

 **A/N: Once again it would appear that, in attempting to refrain from being too obvious, most of the little nuggets of background information I tried to cleverly sow through the chapters have been buried or lost, sorry. In case anyone else is interested in the Adele situation, this is how it is in my head. All these points have been salted through the stories.**

 **Adele's link is more with Sarah than Chuck, as Sarah relates to Adele more than any of the other women. Hattie and Zondra are from a different world (the north), and even Ellie is from more of a privileged background than Sarah is. While Sarah didn't grow up with the rapes and physical abuse that Adele did, there are many parallels, she was born dirt poor in the south like her, she was also forced by her father to play different roles against her will and do things she objected to when helping him in his cons, she lost her mother young like Adele did and had no love from her father. In my mind, this all combined to make Adele a sister in Sarah's eyes, and that was why they** ** **became close** so quickly. There is also the fact that Adele only feels truly safe and comfortable with Sarah and Chuck (and to a lesser degree Ellie).**

 **After over 15 years of rape and physical abuse, which she only escaped when she joined the family, Adele sees horrors whenever she closes her eyes, so she has screaming nightmares most nights. As she was already sharing their cabin/room, Sarah started bringing her into their bed to comfort her when she had these screaming nightmares and talked Adele and Chuck into trying something to reduce them, it did help so they agreed to do it when she needed more comfort. By the time Adele became pregnant, the three of them had been this close for 2 1/2 years or so and they were very comfortable with each other and their situation, so much so that Sarah and Chuck's links with their babies included Adele (and vice versa), so they have no trouble with continuing things the way they are.**

 **Essentially we have a matriarchal sister wife thing going on. Chuck and Sarah are the prime couple, but they have Adele as an integral part of their lives.**

 **NB: The majority of the girls they rescued from the brothels are in much the same situation as Adele, as the months or years of horrors forced on them in the brothels had left them broken, with a deep rooted fear and loathing of most men. Aside from Chuck, there were only a few handfuls of women like Sarah, Ellie, Adele and Jane, older father figures like John, Hank, Jerry and Joshua (and Al and Jeff actually) and gay men like Weed and Bill that they felt at all safe with. Any other men trying to engage or touch them terrified them, and their reactions were often quite violent.**


	13. Truth and Glare

**Sorry if anyone's been waiting for this, but I've gone back to revise the stories that this is coming out of from the very beginning (Daemon) and that's taking a while. That's my problem with half my stories, I'll get a fair way into them and then decide that I don't like where they've gone so I'll go back and change them, at least until they get published so I can't anyway. :^)**

 ** **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale. There will probably be changes in the first hour or so as I proof read it as well.****

"For a start, most of us are not what we appear to be. As I have just alluded to, my relationship with President Grant is more than just as an agent of the government. He and Missus Grant, the First Lady that is, have been the closest things to parents that I have had since I was a little girl, and as Mister Montgomery already knows, both Mister Casey and myself were in fact working for the Confederacy up until the last months of the war, Mister Casey was known as the Bear, and I was known as the Black Widow. Mister Casey and Mister Barker also know what it is to be separated from their children as they both have teenaged daughters that they were forcibly separated from until recently, very recently for Mister Barker, as we only rescued his daughter from her captivity in the past few months. Missus Paterson came to this life as a teenager after she escaped from the life that her father had been attempting to force her into by marrying her off against her wishes as soon as she came of age to cement ties for his business empire, and hence lived under another identity for many years and had to endure many things, as you would know from your own experiences as a female intelligence agent." The look she got from Miss Beckman at that confirmed that the woman _did_ know what she was talking about.

"Missus Barker began life as Maria Rossi, she was subjected to a horrific attack as a teenager and her mother was raped and murdered in a related incident, but Mister Montgomery helped her find her way back from that, she has also had to endure the things that a woman does in this world. Missus Casey was also subjected to a series of horrific events, as was Miss Petit, but luckily for all of us we met them in time to help them get out of their situations. My husband ran away from home at eleven on a boyish crusade against slavery and lived under a false identity until the end of the war, he is now using this identity as his primary identity again as his Army qualifications are attached to that identity. Mister Barker was framed for murder by a corrupt judge and sent to a death camp as a teenager while his young wife was raped and murdered and his infant daughter was stolen away by that judge, he was then forced to choose between forcible conscription in the Union Army and death when General Butler's troops took over that death camp. Indeed, only Mister Paterson, Mister Parker and Mister and Missus Dent are anything close to what they appear to be, though that does not adequately depict their capabilities or mean that they have been spared trauma in their lives, for Missus Dent and her brother, my husband, had both of their parents murdered on the same night by a vile creature. Which leads us to the biggest secret, are you aware of the legends of the Old Ones, sometimes called Daemons or Vampires, Miss Beckman?"

Miss Beckman looked at her, mainly confused now as the anger and reproach had left her expression as Sarah had been talking. "Are you referring to the fairy tales that are told to frighten children and induce them to do as they are told or the bogeyman will get them?"

Sarah shook her head sadly. "Unfortunately, Miss Beckman, they are _NOT_ fairy tales, they are quite real. The creature who murdered my husband and his sister's parents was one of them, and it was attempting to take my husband as well when he killed it. When he managed to kill it unexpectedly, however, something truly bizarre happened, all of the memories that it had sucked out of its untold number of victims transferred into him, this is _part"_ (she frowned at Zondra at that) "of what makes us such an effective team, what we know from the hundreds of victims that the Daemons took every year."

Miss Beckman was shaking her head. "This is not possible! You're just repeating tales! This sort of thing does not exist in the real world!" Most of the team were smiling at this (though they could see that Roan shared her views), as they were remembering how _they'd_ reacted when they'd first been forced to face this. Sarah looked at Chuck, sending the message 'We'll have to prove it to her, to both of them' and Chuck nodded, speaking up.

"Miss Beckman, do you know exactly where your family's fortune came from?" She cut off her…. well, tirade was a good enough word, to look at him, confused. "No, why?"

"Well we do!" He then proceeded to tell her about the nefarious dealings and outright thefts of her ancestors, which had culminated in the Beckman family being at the forefront of the moneyed rich of east coast society.

Roan was looking a little too smug for Sarah's liking as Chuck told Miss Beckman the dirt about her family, so she stepped in as Chuck wound up. "Roan, I am glad to see that you've never shown any racist tendencies, not to me anyway, because in case you didn't know, your maternal grandmother was actually a slave of mixed race called Masey!"

"What? That's not true!" Sarah cut him off to give him chapter and verse about how his grandfather had gotten one of his slaves pregnant, and how they'd taken her baby away from her when she was born, in order to pass her off as his wife's because the baby had looked white and his wife was barren. Roan was shaking his head over that when he finally accepted what he was being told, but he suddenly stiffened and sat up, staring at her. "Wait, what….?"

"Did you miss the fact that Chuck said _WE_ do, rather than _I_ do? When we were in New Orleans the first time, we found out that the Secret Service and Culper Ring agent that we were going after, Clyde Decker, was actually the host for one of the Daemons. He had me in his power in a storehouse where we were battling it out with his men, but Chuck recognised what was happening and he ran straight through the middle of a gun battle to save me! Luckily, Chuck somehow got through all of that without being hit, and the Old One didn't see him coming because he was concentrating on me. It didn't realise the threat until Chuck drove a cutlass through its heart, just as he had with the one who had killed his parents. As it died, everything inside it flowed into me, just as it happened with Chuck, so now I have all the memories from one Old One, while Chuck has all the memories from another one. That is where we get a lot of the information that we work with from, the memories of all their victims that are in our heads."

Miss Beckman was staring at them in shock, and then glanced at their children with a calculating look on her face. Chuck was glad that they'd spent some time explaining to them that they couldn't let anyone else, including Uncle Sam, see that they were special, and both he and Sarah had both been sending them reminders of that the whole time they were in there. As a result, what Miss Beckman saw when she looked at them was four beautiful toddlers who were quieter than most small children, but didn't display anything else to show that they were anything but normal toddlers.

He could also see something of what Roan saw in Miss Beckman, as she'd recovered from a string of massive hits to her equilibrium, after having her secret baby exposed, (not to mention the fact that she'd just discovered that her baby had Negro blood, which would be hard to swallow for many people) _and_ having her family's dark past and his and Sarah's secret forced on her, to make the intuitive leap to consider the children and wonder about their capabilities that quickly, that was impressive!

* * *

Sarah looked at Uncle Sam while the others were absorbing what they'd just discovered. "So Uncle Sam, you obviously wanted us to meet with Roan and Miss Beckman because you wish for us all to work together, how exactly do you wish for us to proceed?"

Uncle Sam frowned at her. "Young lady, you do know how to take all the fun out other people's big reveal, don't you? Don't you think you've hogged the attention enough for today?"

Sarah smiled at him and he melted, as he usually had with her, but when he 'humphed' and went to address the others Chuck interrupted, saying that he needed to take Helen to the toilet (she'd made a point of tugging his shirt to get his attention), so they should go on without him, but Sarah piped up that Castor was squirming so he needed to go as well, and suggested that they take all of them to get it out of the way.

While they were out of the room, Miss Beckman asked if it was always like this? Uncle Sam answered her. "Since their children were born, yes. I had to request that Colonel Barton go back to New Orleans to address a new problem that had arisen since they cleaned out the first nest of rattlers down there. Missus Barton refused to allow their family to be separated, so she insisted that they all go with him. She was proven right in this, because the operation to bring down the conspirators down there couldn't have succeeded without her involvement…. these conspirators were the ones who were tried and executed in Washington a few months ago, I'm sure you know about that?" (she nodded)

"To date, all of these meetings have been here, in my office and quite frankly, if we have to have breaks while the Bartons…." (he glanced at the others) "or any of the team, have to look after their babies, that's a small price to pay for what they give us. Mister Montgomery has vouched for you and your abilities, Miss Beckman, and his confidence in you has been borne out so far, but I'd think very carefully before you say anything of the nature of you 'can't work with them under these conditions'. This is _the_ best team that we have, they have accomplished far more than the rest of our intelligence services put together, so if you wish to achieve anything significant, you _will_ need to work with them. Also…. after what you've been told here, _both_ of you," (glancing at Roan) "if you can't commit to working with them _and_ keeping their secrets, then you will have to be interned somewhere that you can't talk to anyone, unless a more permanent solution is taken."

Miss Beckman and Roan looked at him, taking in the ultimatum that they'd just been given, work with the team and keep their secrets, or they'd be locked away in a black hole, or more likely, killed. Roan spoke up at that point. "Diane, do not test the President on this! The security and stability of the nation rests on these people's shoulders. What they've achieved, just in the time that I've been involved, it beggars belief, but I've seen it with my own eyes! At least two of the plots that they've taken down were strong enough to destroy the United States…. though we could have done without that diplomatic incident with Brazil…."

Hattie piped up at that. "Oh come on Uncle Roan, it was only two warships, and they weren't worried about more than half a dozen of those perverts we killed!"

"One of them was the Emperor's nephew! And those two warships were the flagships of the Brazilian Navy!"

"Well the Emperor should be thanking us for taking that disgusting pig out of his family tree, and their warships attacked _us_!"

Miss Beckman was looking shocked again. "Do you mean these people did all that in South America last year?"

Sarah came back in with the girls at that point and answered her. "None of that would have happened if Uncle Sam hadn't insisted that we gather intelligence for him while we were taking our boat around South America! And those warships were Commodore Paterson's doing!"

Tom piped up at that. "Well, Chuck did design the Belle and build the guns, so he had a hand in it as well Sarah."

Sarah gave him a 'who's side are you on?' look and said. "OK, Chuck may have contributed the boat and the guns, but it was your father who commanded the engagement!"

She was trying to straighten herself out, but it was difficult with the girls in her arms, so Ellie handed Clara to Andy and took her nieces off her, telling her that they were all right where they were when Sarah went to take her daughters back.

When Chuck came back in, John and Mei quickly took the boys off of him, so he sat with Sarah and held her hand.

Uncle Sam looked at Miss Beckman. "Miss Beckman, we appear to have gotten side tracked, however I am still waiting for your response to my question?"

She looked back at him and drew a breath, she had no doubt that he would do exactly as he said, and Roan had never been wrong when he committed to something professionally, as he obviously had to these people, so she nodded. "Yes, Mister President, I expect that there will be some stumbling blocks as I get used to the way these people operate, but I will commit to working with them as best I can, and to keeping their secrets, all of them."

He nodded and looked at Roan with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course! I thought you knew that I've already committed to the family Sir?" Uncle Sam nodded, though he hadn't been in the loop on their previous discussions.

Uncle Sam took the reins of the discussion at that point, to prevent it bogging down any further. "Miss Beckman, you may not know about this, but we recently came close to losing the services of this team through the actions of your predecessor and other officials. The team, or more to the point the Bartons, were drowning under the constant flood of demands for information on just about any and every item that the people here in Washington wanted to progress. As you now know, the way that they access a large part of this information is by way of the memories that arise from what resides in their heads when they look into something. It is my understanding that many of these memories are extremely unsavoury, and due to the volume of information requests that they were receiving, they were being constantly inundated with these repugnant memories. This eventually caused Missus Barton to demand that we reduce that to _only_ what was absolutely necessary, and directly related to those conspiracies that they are here to engage and destroy, or she and her family would disappear, never to be seen again. Mister Montgomery and I have endeavoured to comply with her requests, and I hope that we have succeeded to her satisfaction?" (Sarah nodded)

"But I have limited understanding of many of the matters that are involved here, and Mister Montgomery cannot be expected to have a full understanding of what is being investigated by organisations other than his own, this is why I wanted to have you brought into the fold, so that you and Mister Montgomery can deal with the team on the critical intelligence matters directly. If we uncover any revivals of the organisations that have been put down, or increased activity by the Culper Ring or its associates, I will oversee the engagement of the team, _my_ team, for any new operations. However, it is my belief that it would be more effective if the two of you dealt directly with the team for the on-going processing of critical intelligence matters, without my involvement muddying the waters."

He looked around the room, asking. "Is this proposal acceptable to everyone?"

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other as they communicated over the link, and Chuck nodded for show as Sarah turned to Uncle Sam and said "Yes, Uncle Sam." He looked at Roan, who nodded and said "Of Course!" then Miss Beckman who said "Yes, Sir" He went around the room, getting a "Yes" or "Yes, Sir" from each person, though there was a delay before Ben realised that a response was expected from him as well and he quickly nodded, saying "Yes, Sir!"

* * *

Ben's reaction got smiles from most of them, but Uncle Sam looked thoughtful at that, and he turned back to Miss Beckman and Roan. "This is something else that you should realise about this team. When this operation started a bit over three years ago, I had a military unit put together of the best that the Army had to support them. There were issues in the first troop that was put together, traitors that we hadn't identified and others who weren't the right stuff, but these gentlemen" (waving at Tom and Hank) "brought that back down to forty who were the very best. You need to understand that in a sensible world, every one of those men would be officers, commanding their own soldiers, and in fact nine of them are brevet officers as well as non-commissioned officers but many of them, like Mister Barker here, have fought that all along the way. The only time Mister Barker has agreed to operate as an officer was while they were cleaning up the recent conspiracy, here and in New Orleans. I tried again when I assigned another unit of thirty two to support them and protect their home base while they had to be away, but once again they definitely weren't the right stuff including, unfortunately, the officer who commanded that unit. However I understand that the troop _has_ been extended by marines and crew from your maiden voyage around South America?"

Tom nodded. "Yes Sir, and they have been accepted as full members of Barton's Dragoons."

"Barton's what?"

Tom looked at Chuck, but Chuck shook his head. "No, this was your idea, _you_ explain it!"

Tom frowned at him, but turned back to Uncle Sam "You know that Mei was given the nickname of the Dragon Lady, and by association, the Chinese and other girls we rescued were called her Dragons Sir?"

"No, I hadn't known that, but it makes sense I suppose, go on."

"Well Mei and the others have been giving them training whenever we had the chance, ever since we moved out to the hacienda. They've also been trained with the firearms that were purchased to protect themselves and the hacienda, but you know that sir." (Uncle Sam nodded again)

"The point was that they got good, damned good! Sorry ladies... They've also concentrated more on their firearms drills recently and got quite good at that too. After the business in Washington finished and we were released to go home, we returned to the hacienda and when we saw how good the girls had become, someone.."

The whole team looked at him at that, including Hattie. "OK, _I_ commented that they were as good as trained soldiers, saying that they should be called the Dragoons, rather than the Dragons, and I suggested the name Barton's Dragoons as a joke, but most of us seemed to like it, so we came up with the symbol" (He passed over the watch fob with the symbol on it.) "At the time, we were working to incorporate the new marines and sailors into the troop, so we mixed the new with the old for twenty groups of four, then we split up the Dragons into twenty groups of eight and put them together with the troopers for drills, with firearms and without."

"They're all improving any weak points they may have and working well together, so when we came up with the Barton's Dragoons idea, everyone adopted it. Barton's Dragoons is now a very effective fighting force of two hundred and forty men and women, and the women are almost as good as the men, better in some areas, but that shouldn't be a surprise." He finished that statement by waving his hand around the women of the team.

Uncle Sam looked at Chuck. "So you have an army now Colonel Barton? I suppose I should be thankful that your Navy only has seven vessels?"

Chuck raised an eyebrow at him. "I am aware that you have armed your small boats as well as the Belle and the Elana..."

Chuck glanced at the others before he responded, but they shook their heads. "Yes Sir, would you mind telling me where you heard that?"

"It just came out when I was talking to the Commodore, as he was excited about and proud of your accomplishments, and I would also like to talk about this Cloud at some time, I presume that that was how you got here so quickly this time?"

Chuck didn't say a word, just nodded tightly as he turned to glare at Joseph. It was obvious that he wasn't at all pleased with this and Uncle Sam suddenly remembered what happened last time he was like this, so he tried to diffuse the situation.

"It wasn't like that Charles! Joseph and I were talking as old friends and as I said, he was excited about the wonders that you've created, no-one else knows anything about this!"

Chuck glanced at Miss Beckman and Uncle Sam turned slightly to address her as well as him. "Miss Beckman has already pledged to keep your secrets Charles, and I'm sure she understands that _this_ is part of those secrets?"

Miss Beckman looked from one to the other, aware that the situation was more dangerous than it appeared on the surface."Yes sir, even though I didn't really understand much of what you've just said."

Uncle Sam sighed. "I'm sorry Miss Beckman, but it would be best just to treat _ever_ _ything_ in any of our discussions with this team as matters of the highest secrecy."

She nodded. "Yes Sir."

* * *

Tom spoke up again. "Chuck, if Dad's already mentioned the Cloud, what would it hurt to tell him a little about it?"

Chuck nodded, though obviously still not happy, and faced Uncle Sam. "Yes Sir, the Cloud has completed her trials, and this is her second trip to Washington."

He glanced at Roan. "That night you saw me was her first trial run of any distance."

Roan nodded. "Yes, but could someone tell me what this Cloud _IS_ , please?"

Chuck sighed. "The Cloud is an Atmotic Ship, an airship, it's based on a concept that was presented at the Great Exhibition in London in Fifty Four, but it has been completely re-engineered from what was presented. I started working on it when I was going crazy with panic about Sarah when she was pregnant."

Sarah squeezed his hand and explained to Miss Beckman. "I was quite poorly for the last couple of months of my pregnancy and Chuck was very worried about me, so he started building the Cloud as a way to get me to help, to save me." She ignored the others and leant in to kiss Chuck, which calmed him as it usually did. With that, he went on.

"For the purposes of transporting small groups of people across country, it works well enough, but it has a very limited payload, so it's unsuited for any commercial or military purposes. After some discussion, we have decided that in it's sufficient to fill our very specific needs as it is, so we will not be doing any more development on the design."

Uncle Sam caught onto what he was really saying. "So I take it that there would be no point in asking for the designs so we can build some of these craft for the Army or Navy?"

"I'm afraid not Sir. As we discussed in regard to the Belle's design, key parts of these designs belong to others, so it would be ethically wrong to pass them on without their permission, and the fact that we've used their ideas without prior consent would make asking permission difficult. Therefore we destroyed all of the designs once the Cloud was finished."

Uncle Sam nodded gravely in capitulation to that. "May I at least have a ride in this marvellous craft that Joseph is so excited about one day?"

That got a smile from Chuck. "I'm sure that we can arrange that Uncle Sam, we just need to work out how to do it without anyone _else_ seeing her."

* * *

With that, they went back to sorting out the details so that Miss Beckman could communicate with the team, but they were still doing that a couple of hours later. The atmosphere in the room had remained rather tense because of Miss Beckman, as she was still fuming about Sarah's coming out with the information about her daughter like that, and she wasn't the type to forgive and forget. This had been proven by how she was with Roan, logically she shouldn't have had trouble accepting his decision as her own was not so different, but eight years later she was still holding a grudge about it.

As the day wore on, Sarah grew more and more tired of this, so as soon as all the necessary frameworks, protocols and procedures had been mapped out, she sent a message to their children to start playing up. She saw the amusement flash across Chuck's face before he managed to school his expression, and then their little darlings went off! It didn't take them more than five to ten minutes to totally disrupt the meeting. Ellie, Andy, Adele, John, Mei, Hattie, Tom, Zondra and Ben were all struggling to keep straight faces, as they knew that these darling children _never_ behaved this way, so this was something that one of their parents, Sarah most probably from her irritated expression just prior to this, had put them up to.

That supposition was confirmed when she said. "Oh I'm so sorry, I don't know what's gotten into them, maybe they're tired? Anyway, I believe we have everything organised now?"

The look she sent Uncle Sam's way said 'say yes or else!' and he had no inclination to cross her when she was this riled, so he played along.

"Yes. Yes, I think we have what we need in place, why don't we take a break here and come back to pick up the discussions again later?"

Sarah looked him in the eye to make sure he got the point, even though her expression and voice gave nothing away. "Actually Uncle Sam, the children have been been fretful ever since we left home. As we seem to have worked out all the necessary details, I really think it would be best if we took them home, now."

Uncle Sam frowned at her. He didn't know these children well enough to know that they never behaved like this, but he _did_ know when Sarah was playing him, and she was doing it now!

He was about to say something when Chuck stepped in. "Actually Uncle Sam, Ellie has been thinking that they may be teething, so that's probably why they're playing up. If that's the case, it _would_ be best to take them home now, and bring them back when they've gotten past it and will be better behaved."

The look Uncle Sam turned on Chuck said that he didn't believe a word of it, but he got the message, they were determined to get out of there and return home, and knowing Sarah she wouldn't stop until she got her way. He sighed as he gave in.

"Well maybe it would be best to wind up this visit here then but..." He fixed Sarah with a look "You _must_ see your Aunt Julia before you go, you'll upset her if you don't!"

Sarah smiled, nodding. "Of course Uncle Sam! You know I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to Aunt Julia!"

Uncle Sam nodded, turning to Roan and Miss Beckman. "Mr Montgomery, Miss Beckman, I believe you have everything you need to proceed?"

They chorused "Yes, Mr President."

"Then we'll wind this visit up here, let me know if there are any issues, and I'll expect reports of how this is working."

They left with another chorus of. "Yes, Mr President."

Once they were gone, he fixed Sarah with a glare. "Would you like to explain what's going on young lady?"

She plied him with a 'butter wouldn't melt in her mouth' look and asked "What do you mean Uncle Sam?"

Normally that would have worked on him, but he was decidedly irked by what had just happened, and what's more he had noted that the children were suddenly back to their sweet selves again. "Don't try that with me young lady, what were those charades all about?"

Sarah sighed and dropped the act. "No matter how many meetings we had, we weren't going to make any more progress with Miss Beckman, because of the tactics I had to use to convince her of what we were telling her Uncle Sam. Given how she's been with Roan Montgomery, I dare say it will be a long time before she forgives me for what I did, if ever, so as we had everything we need for this process to work in place, I set our children off to get out of wasting hours on more of the same dross. I _was_ serious about what I said though, we just want to get home!"

Uncle Sam sighed as well as he slumped in his seat. "I'm afraid that you are most probably correct about Miss Beckman Sarah, that woman does know how to hold a grudge, and coming out about her baby the way you did, telling the father her full name _and_ telling everyone in the room that her daughter has coloured blood like that…. no, I don't see her forgiving you in a hurry."

* * *

He thumped the arms of his chair as he stood. "Well, if you're determined to go, let's get you to Julia so you can say your goodbyes and get going."

Sarah stood, but said. "We don't need to rush our visit with Aunt Julia Uncle Sam, we can't leave until after dark with the Cloud anyway."

"Well if you're not in that much of a hurry, perhaps you could tell me about this wonderful machine that Joseph was so excited about, and which you are now obviously using to fly across the country?"

Sarah looked at Chuck and he nodded with a resigned smile, Sarah gave him a quick kiss and sat down again, moving Castor and Nessie to one side in her lap so that she could look in her purse for something. Chuck looked at Joseph but it was obvious that _he_ wasn't about to say another word about it, so he began to speak.

"Well as we've already said Uncle Sam, the Cloud's an airship, I had all the information about the original design up here," (tapping his temple) "but the engineering was all wrong, so when I started to become unhinged with my worry about Sarah while she was pregnant, I sat down to redesign what the inventor came up with into something that was workable, and then started building it. While we were in South America, I picked up a fairly large quantity of balsa wood, which is lighter than cork, because I knew of its properties from" (tapping his temple again) "so I designed the frameworks to be built from that, with all the balsa pieces covered in veneers of shaved walnut to seal them and increase their strength."

"John and the others made me see what an insane idea this was and forced me to stop working on it until after the babies were born, but once Scottie got his engineering workrooms set up and the Elana and other more important work out of the way, we sat down together and revised the designs so he and his engineers could pick up where I'd left off, because he could see my vision for it, and by then they had all the updated designs to be going on with. Scottie also used the steam turbine developments we'd used for the Belle's steam plant to build vapour turbines with enough power and efficiency to make the Cloud viable. So that's where we are, after we'd completed her, we found that we needed to make some fairly significant changes to make it work properly, but once they were done she worked well enough for what we want her to do, if not other uses."

At that point, Sarah handed him what she'd been searching for, the photograph of the Cloud as she was taking off from the hacienda. Chuck looked at it, and smiled as he handed it over to Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam looked at the photograph and shook his head. "That doesn't look like any balloon or airship that I've ever seen, or even seen images of."

Sarah grinned impishly at him. "Perhaps that's why it works Uncle Sam?"

He couldn't help smiling back at her as he nodded. "Perhaps."

With that he returned the photograph to Chuck and stood. "Why don't we get you to Julia so she can have some time with you and the babies? You'll say goodbye before you leave?"

Sarah nodded and came forward to kiss him on the cheek. "We'll try Uncle Sam, if you're not too busy."

Uncle Sam nodded and smiled fondly at Castor and Nessie as he gently smoothed their hair (as he regarded these children as his first grandchildren in all but blood), then led the group to the door.

They spent much of the afternoon with Aunt Julia and, as promised, said goodbye to Uncle Sam before they climbed into their buggies and left Washington. Their return to the Cloud was similar to Chuck and Bill's previous visit, in that after they'd left town heading in the opposite direction, they checked for any obvious pursuit and then opened up the buggies to outdistance anyone who may be following, changing direction a few times to shake off pursuers before heading for the Cranston farm. Once there, they followed the roads until they turned off to do the last leg to the Cloud across country in the fading light.

* * *

There was no rush to get aloft this time, as they wanted to wait for true dark and to give any possible pursuit time to dissipate. So they ran the buggies up inside the Cloud, then made some food and coffee and settled down to discuss the events of their visit with the others.

The first thing raised was, of course, what they'd had to put off until after they'd left Washington, what Joseph had let slip to Uncle Sam, and he was mortified when he was made to realise just what he'd done. Sarah was more relentless than Chuck on this point as she berated him.

"Uncle Joseph, you _HAVE_ to remember that whenever you're talking to Uncle Sam, you are in fact talking to _**P**_ _ **RESIDENT**_ Grant! There's a reason why we have never told Uncle Sam the whole truth about the Belle, the guns, Chuck's other weapons, Weed's wireless telegraph or anything else Chuck's created, it's because Uncle Sam is first and foremost the _President of the United States_ and as long as he is the President, his first thought will _always_ be how he can use something to advance the United States!"

"You know that I truly love Uncle Sam dearly, but Uncle John, Jim and I came to the realisation right at the start of this that his desire to advance the United States could quite easily result in Chuck's creations being used to do _terrible_ things if they were put in the hands of others who don't hold life as dear as we do. You _know_ military men Uncle Joseph, you've lived with them all your life! Think of what many of them would do if they had warships that had the technology that Chuck, you and Scottie have created for the Belle and Chuck's guns, or even worse, what could happen if they built bigger versions of the Cloud and armed them with bigger versions of Chuck's guns, can you doubt the carnage that would ensue if _that_ happened?"

Joseph looked horrified as he visualised just what Sarah was describing, warships darting about a naval battle, decimating everything in their path, a single battleship bombarding entire towns with a hail of cannon fire that a dozen, a score of normal warships couldn't match…. or even worse, as she said, massive armed versions of the Cloud raining cannon fire down on battlefields, or towns with no defence against them.

As he looked at her in horror, Sarah went on "By now you must know how staunchly loyal Uncle John is to his country?" (Joseph nodded, still reeling from the images that she'd evoked) "Even _he_ is adamant that Chuck can never let the Army or Navy or anyone like them get their hands on or even know about what he's created, as he's seen the same visions as I believe you're seeing at the moment. That was why we put the fear of God into the other crewmen before they went back east, because we can't afford to have the war department or anyone else trying to get their hands on what we have, _ever!_ "

At first Tom had believed that Sarah was laying it on a little thick, but as he began envisioning what she was talking about he went white, much like his father.

When she saw that Joseph (and Tom) were truly grasping what she was saying, Sarah asked. "Do we have agreement then that we can _never_ discuss _anything_ that's created within the group with anyone outside?" She made a point of looking at both of them as she asked this, and they nodded grimly, then she looked at the others and they nodded as well. Most of them hadn't stopped to think about these potentialities before, but now that they had, they were resolved to do whatever they could to ensure that these nightmares never came about.

* * *

With that, they went on to discuss what they'd been brought to Washington for, and how they would be working with Roan Montgomery and Diane Beckman rather than Uncle Sam unless they were on active operations. Hattie piped up at that point to add the juicier snippet of information that this Diane Beckman had in fact had Uncle Roan's child after the war, but he'd chosen duty over family (she let the fact that Roan and therefore the child were actually part black remain a secret).

Once it was dark enough to mask their departure, Scottie fired up the boilers and the crew readied the Cloud for flight, doing it in a rather more leisurely fashion than they usually did as there was no hurry this time. When she was ready, they doused all the lights and let the mooring lines go to allow her to lift off, easing her up to cruising speed and altitude once she was high enough.

The return trip to Los Angeles took much the same time as the trip out had, because the Cloud's efficient cruising speed was just that, and the trip would have had to take over twice as long for them to get any significant fuel savings. As they'd seen on her maiden voyage to Washington though, the scenery they saw was different because the day and night travel portions were reversed on the way back, so the passengers were just as captivated by the views as they had been on the trip out.

Just as they had on the previous trip, they timed it to arrive in Los Angeles after sundown to ensure that they didn't pass over any towns or big ranchos thereabouts in the daylight, but they'd learned their lesson and used the wireless telegraph to check the wind conditions before they touched down this time. This also gave the people at the hacienda time to get the arc lamps going so their landing area was lit up and they had a chance to chase the stock out of the way before the Cloud came down.

They were pumping hydrogen out of the gas bags as they swung over the hacienda and she touched down smoothly with hardly a bump. This time she _was_ lined up with the Cloud House as she landed, so Joseph and Scottie just drove her straight in with her propellers for a picture perfect finish of the trip.

The passengers disembarked in the Cloud House and strolled down to the big house as the crew shut the Cloud down. There may have been hiccups in Washington with Miss Beckman, but the trip itself went off without a hitch, just what they were hoping for with the Cloud.

 **A/N: The next update will take a while as well, because we've sailed off the edge of the map now and I am still looking for the heading I want to take.**


End file.
